Federal dollars aim to integrate mental health, substance use treatment into primary care in Indiana

Indiana has been awarded roughly $3.6 million to help support expanded access to mental health and substance abuse services in clinical settings.

The funds come from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and are part of a nationwide effort to expand care.

The competitive grants were awarded to some 400 community health centers across the country, including six in Indiana.

Community health centers are federally supported and provide health care to individuals who may be uninsured or otherwise unable to pay.

Carole Johnson, the administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration, said that their data show that community health centers aren’t meeting the demand for either mental health or substance abuse services.

According to a release, community health centers are meeting just 27% of the demand for mental health services and only 6% of the demand for substance use disorder treatments nationwide.

In Indiana, a 2022 report from the IU School of Public Health found that over 1 in 4 Indiana residents with mental illness believed they needed mental health treatment but did not receive it. As for residents with Substance Use Disorders, the report found that only 5% of those who felt they needed treatment were able to receive it.

“We've got to be integrating mental health and substance use disorder treatment into primary care in the place where people have a trusted provider, where they feel comfortable, where they're most likely to raise their mental health or substance use disorder concerns,” Johnson said.

Long term, Johnson said the hope is to require that the roughly 1400 community health centers across the country provide mental health and behavioral health services. But she also wants to be able to make that change in the healthcare system overall.

“What we really want to do is model what this can look like. There's been a lot of talk about the integration of physical and behavioral health,” she said. “We know that mental health is health, and we need to be able to demonstrate that there are ways that we can do this and do this smartly.”

The community health centers receiving funding include the Indiana Health Centers based in Indianapolis, Riggs Community Health in Lafayette, and Valley Professionals in Clinton.

Across Indiana the Indiana Primary Care Association estimates there are some 35 community health centers.

Contact WFYI and Side Effects Public Media's health reporter Benjamin Thorp at bthorp@wfyi.org.