Top 4 Challenges Facing Behavioral Health Organizations

A 2015 survey cited four of the biggest challenges facing behavioral health organizations were centered around an organization's culture, administrative tasks, regulatory compliance and collaborating with external sources for billing or client care. With the constant changes in behavioral healthcare, things probably haven't changed very much.

1. Culture

Roughly 10% of those surveyed stated some sort of culture-related frustration as its biggest challenge. Interpersonal conflicts in the workplace often result from frustration in navigating inadequate or antiquated processes. With paper records, most processes are generally governed by SOPs (standard operating procedures), These procedures tend to change as new management comes on board they can easily become non-standardized as providers and staff interpret these processes in their own way.

2. Administrative Tasks

Close to 20% of respondents stated specific administrative tasks as their organization’s largest challenge. This challenge included all types of functional duties performed by staff, including patient registration, documentation, and filing claims. Some of the organizations confessed many of these tasks were being performed by the care providers themselves. Administrative tasks represent a significant portion of any behavioral health organization’s time, that's just how it is.

3. Regulatory Compliance

Around 30% of those surveyed replied that keeping up with state or federal regulation was its biggest challenge, no surprise here! Behavioral health care is subjected to regular revisions in both state and federal requirements on a constant basis which often results in necessary changes to forms or workflows.

4. Collaborating externally

The most common survey response (40% of survey respondents) was that collaborating with external resources for billing or care was the biggest organizational challenge. With behavioral healthcare having so many different yet interlacing facets, it’s not surprising that the cooperation between care providers, billing services and insurance companies was a major pain point for the respondents.

Does your organization struggle with any of these issues?  The right EHR vendor may be able to help.