Best Practice

The support of our recovery coaches is more valuable than ever right now, as COVID-19 is keeping people inside and physically separated from their support groups, loved ones, and others they normally reach out to for help. If your patients are in recovery or looking to get started, consider pointing them towards our peer recovery coaches.

Every day, you and your patients hear the updates of the COVID-19 pandemic. The statistics are overwhelming to us adults, but children are especially feeling anxious. May 9 was National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day, and this year it’s more important than ever to ensure the children in one’s life are doing well. Your patients shouldn’t be afraid to engage and encourage their children to have conversations around COVID-19. Here are some tips for your patients to remember when discussing COVID-19 with their children.

Quality assurance and HEDIS^®

AllWays Health Partners’ behavioral health partner Optum provides a quality assurance (QA) toolkit for primary care providers (PCPs). This toolkit was designed to explain the substance use disorders and depression measures of HEDIS® to PCPs and give recommendations for meeting these measures. HEDIS stands for Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set, describing a set of performance measures for both behavioral and physical health conditions. The intent is for purchasers and consumers to use HEDIS to compare and evaluate health plans easily.  Not only that, HEDIS sets a standard for the quality of care that patients should be receiving. The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) uses HEDIS to evaluate PCPs, health plans, and Managed Behavioral Healthcare Organizations.

Our fall/winter member newsletter is in the mail, and fully insured, commercial members should be receiving it soon. This issue includes a guide to preventive care to help members stay well and understand what's covered by their plan. 

October 10 is World Mental Health Day. This year's focus is suicide prevention. Worldwide, suicide is the cause of 800,000 deaths annually. 

World Mental Health Day is organized by the World Federation for Mental Health. This year’s Day is supported by WHO, the International Association for Suicide Prevention, and United for Global Mental Health.