Human Services and Behavioral Health Integration: A Model for Whole-Person Medicaid Managed Care

A comprehensive, whole-person approach to individuals’ health care can be achieved by aligning, integrating, and coordinating health services with other human services. HealthChoices, Pennsylvania’s managed Medicaid program, delegates responsibility for Medicaid-funded behavioral health service management to individual counties or multicounty collaboratives. County administrators’ programmatic and fiscal oversight of Medicaid-funded services allows them to create synergies between behavioral health and other human service delivery systems and to set priorities on the basis of local needs. This model supports access to community-based care, integration of general medical and behavioral health services, and programs that address social determinants of health.