Does Collaborative Care Save Time for Primary Care Providers? Absolutely.

Primary Care Providers like you may see up to 25 patients, return dozens of phone calls, and battle email overload—all in one day. On top of that, you’re expected to deliver exceptional physical and mental health care in less than 20 minutes.

You know that’s not enough time. A study by The University of Chicago Medicine agrees with you, too. It’s why Primary Care Providers like you are burning out at unprecedented rates. Unfortunately, at no fault of your own, this worsens patient outcomes.

You can’t do it all, but what if you had a mental health therapist at your clinic to help shoulder the load? You’d reclaim your time, focus on what you do best, and help your patients live happier, healthier lives.

That’s the promise of collaborative care: One cohesive team, driving efficiency, and ultimately, improved patient outcomes.

What is Collaborative Care?

Primary care Is often called the “front door” to healthcare for most Americans—including mental health. Collaborative care ensures your patients can see you, their trusted primary care provider, and a mental health therapist in one place.

Thanks to collaborative care, you can focus your time and energy on what you love.

5 Ways Collaborative Care Saves Time for Primary Care Providers

1. Trade Community Referrals for Immediate Support

Your Problem: You know that there is a severe lack of access to mental health. When your patients struggle for weeks or months finding a therapist, they’ll come to you instead. But with such little time already, you’re often left with no choice but to either manage yourself or refer them out to a community specialist. That takes time, too, and what if your patient never sees the specialist? The extra time needed is certainly draining. So is the uncertainty of your patient getting the high-quality mental health care they deserve.

How Collaborative Care Solves Your Problem: You’ll have a licensed mental health therapist down the hall from your office. Not down the street, halfway across town, or the next city over. This helps your patients get mental health care immediately, not later, in a comfortable environment they trust. As for you, it means spending less time finding community referrals and more time focusing on their physical health needs.

2. Someone Has Your Back, Working as a Team

Your Problem: Treating physical and mental health in one 20-minute appointment is already a tall order. You must also carve out time to enter notes and patient data into your clinic’s EHR. When you can’t delegate, patient care suffers. This leads to burnout, decreased job satisfaction, and unfortunately worse patient outcomes.

How Collaborative Care Solves Your Problem: It’s not called collaborative care for nothing. Instead of you trying to do it all in one appointment, simply refer your patient to your on-site therapist to begin mental health treatment. As a team, you’ll work closely together to monitor progress, share notes, and stay on top of your patients’ whole health journey. Ultimately, you’ll have more time and space to focus on the next patient and their physical health without compromise.

3. Proactive Care Management

Your Problem: You know all too well how time-consuming managing both chronic and acute physical illnesses can be. Mental illness is the same, especially if it goes undetected over time. But without proper screening tools and mental health expertise, you must rely on your patients to speak up. Time is of the essence before your patient’s mental health concerns become too severe and expensive to treat.

How Collaborative Care Solves Your Problem: Collaborative care gives you the tools you need to identify and treat mental illness early. Screening tools, such as the PHQ-9 (for depression) and GAD-7 (for anxiety), help you get a pulse on your patients in less than five minutes. Their scores are all you need to immediately schedule them with the therapist down the hall. This quick, proactive action prevents severe mental illness, saving you both time and resources.

4. Know What Works and What Doesn’t

Your Problem: If your patient is no longer coughing, sneezing, or vomiting, you know your care plan worked. Mental health isn’t so clear cut. Without measuring quantitative progress, it’s hard to tell if mental health interventions actually work. But tracking outcomes is time intensive. So is repeatedly seeing the same patient showing little-to-no progress.

How Collaborative Care Solves Your Problem: You already have an EHR. Collaborative care leverages your clinic’s EHR to keep track of your patient’s physical health—and their mental health. If their PHQ-9s and GAD-7 scores aren’t improving, your collaborative care team knows it’s time to optimize. This means spending less time troubleshooting and more time delivering effective, evidence-based treatments. The result? Improved outcomes, less return visits, and more time to serve other patients in need.

5. Keep Your Patients

Your Problem: Your primary care practice is a business. If your patients aren’t happy, they will go elsewhere. Not to mention, you will spend more time on patient acquisition.

How Collaborative Care Solves Your Problem: Collaborative care turns your practice into a comprehensive solution for physical and mental health. When patients have their needs met in one place, they’re more loyal and more likely to visit your practice every time. This means improved patient retention, less time spent on marketing, and more time spent on patient care.

Sounds Promising. How Can Primary Care Providers Start Their Collaborative Care Journey? Partner with evolvedMD.

As the nation’s leader in integrated care, we’ve enhanced the collaborative care model and currently serve over 220 primary care sites across five U.S. states, with many more coming. In 2024 alone, we served 37,000 unique patients, achieved up to 22% better clinical outcomes than traditional care, and saved primary care providers like you countless hours with our upfront, ongoing, and in-person approach to collaborative care.

How evolvedMD Simplifies Collaborative Care for You:

1. Hiring mental health therapists: We recruit licensed mental health therapists, ensuring you have the best of the best to support your patients’ mental health.
2. Staffing your practice: Once hired, we train and staff these therapists onsite and in person at your practice, integrating them seamlessly into your existing team.
3. Collaborative care training: We provide comprehensive training for your staff on the ins and outs of collaborative care, ensuring everyone is equipped to work together efficiently and effectively.
4. Ongoing Support: We don’t just set up shop and leave. We provide ongoing support and are constantly improving the collaborate care process, helping primary care providers ave time and improve patient outcomes.

Ready to save time and improve patient outcomes? Partner with evolvedMD.