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Washington Council for Behavioral Health & Washington Association of Community & Migrant Health Centers (WACMHC)

The Washington team built new and ongoing relationships with each other and fostered cooperative provider relationships among their members. Because of their Delta Center work, the Washington team was able to collaborate on policy priorities, including the use/overuse of telehealth, mental health/substance use disorder (MH-SUD) specialist credentialing, and improving behavioral health payment in both settings. 

Successes: 

  • Explored opportunities for joint advocacy, focused on co-occurring mental health/SUD specialist credential and scholarships and loan repayment.
  • Planned and executed a Pre-Conference Learning Session at the 2019 Washington Behavioral Healthcare Conference, Safety Net Providers: Delivering Value to Patients, Payers and Partners, which brought together BHAs and FQHCs to discuss shared strategies for integrated care.
  • Developed an inventory of behavioral health processes and outcome measures to help capture/measure the value proposition for behavioral health.

Funded Organizations

The Washington Council for Behavioral Health is the professional association of licensed community behavioral health agencies (BHAs) in the state of Washington that has been serving communities since 1979. They have more than 40 member organizations who serve primarily Medicaid enrollees with a serious mental illness and/or substance use disorder.

The Washington Association of Community Health (previously the Washington Association of Community and Migrant Health Centers) has membership from all 28 Federally Qualified Community Health Centers (FQHCs) in the state. Their members serve more than 1.1 million Washingtonians each year across 350 clinics.