When You Say Integration…

Providing “integrated care” has been a goal for payers since the launch of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in 2010. The primary driver for the shift toward integrating care is PPACA’s significant changes to the health plan benefit structure, particularly behavioral health parity, elimination of preexisting condition exclusions; and elimination of annual and lifetime limits.

As a result of these changes, health plans started to cover more people with serious health problems—and multiple touchpoints in the health and human service system. From the start, the payer focus on integration was (and continues to be) reducing . . .