Primary Care Leaders Can’t Afford to Wait: The Case for Integrating Now 

Our nation’s healthcare system spent $5.3 trillion in 2024 and is expected to reach $8.6 trillion by 2033. The overwhelming demand for whole-person care is driving these astronomical numbers. For mental health specifically, investing in prevention and early intervention could save the U.S. up to $1 trillion in combined healthcare and productivity costs.

However, demand is landing squarely on primary care.

Here’s why: More patients bring mental health concerns to each visit, and providers want to meet their increasingly complex needs. But the system isn’t built to support that need. “Business as usual” compounds over time across patients, providers, and practices:

• It’s Costing Your Providers – My colleague Dr. Tristan Gorrindo wrote about the impossible position most PCPs find themselves in today: managing behavioral health without the support to do it well. 80% admit the growing demand contributes to their own stress and burnout. That pressure directly drives turnover, and losing just one provider may cost more than $1 million when you factor in recruitment, onboarding, and lost revenue, not counting disruption to remaining staff and patients.
• It’s Costing Your Patients – When patients can’t access mental health care, they turn to their primary care providers. But without time, training, or team-based support, PCPs have little choice but to refer patients into a broken system. The first psychiatry and therapy appointments may be weeks or months out. Some patients may follow through at first, only to face prohibitive costs for ongoing care—with or without insurance. Many never follow through and come back to primary care, frustrated, with escalating needs.
• It’s Costing Your Practice(s) – Patients come back from a failed referral with more complex needs. Providers burn out trying to do it all. And the Fee-for-Service model doesn’t recognize, value, or reimburse them appropriately for providing mental health care. The U.S. currently spends just 4 to 5 cents on primary care for every dollar spent on health care. This chronic underinvestment leaves stretched teams to treat worsening co-occurring conditions that could have been addressed months ago, driving three-to-six times higher annual total healthcare costs.

Savings from integrated behavioral health are larger than you’d expect. Here’s what we’ve seen at evolvedMD.

An independent actuarial healthcare firm analyzed 1.3 million patients in our program across Phoenix and Tucson. Our Collaborative Care model (CoCM) reduced the total cost of care by 15% for commercial patients and 15.3% for Medicare patients.

That translates to $1,600 to $2,400 per patient annually, depending on payer type. These savings come from keeping care where it belongs: in your practice.

When patients receive behavioral health support in your practice, it’s less likely they’ll require high-cost services elsewhere. Our program saw a 9% drop in inpatient psychiatric visits and 15% decrease in psychiatric professional visits per 1,000 patients per year.

The average panel size for PCPs is 2,200 patients per year. If 75% present mental health concerns and just 10% of those receive care through CoCM, annual savings could reach up to $400k per physician. With multiple providers, and especially multiple practices, this conservative estimate adds up.

Generating $400k per physician, the cost of integrating is a fraction of the cost of waiting.

The barriers to integrating are real: hiring and training mental health therapists, redesigning workflows, and managing a program that requires ongoing clinical and operational oversight.

Partnering with a specialized CoCM provider removes that burden, bringing the clinical expertise, team-based support, and operational know-how without disrupting your day-to-day.

A CoCM program like evolvedMD’s can be implemented for minimal startup costs. This includes hiring licensed therapists, training them, and embedding proven behavioral health workflows into your practice. From there, established CoCM billing codes and reduced downstream costs drive ROI in a matter of months, not years.

Consider what not integrating might be costing you right now:

• 75% of visits involving behavioral health your providers don’t have time to address
• Over $1 million every time a burned-out provider leaves
• Patients returning with worsening co-occurring conditions, driving three-to-six times higher costs

Now consider what you would gain by integrating behavioral health at scale. If you’d like to learn the ROI for team-based, outcomes-driven Collaborative Care for your system, please free to connect with our team at hello@evolvedmd.com.

About John: Dr. John Brewer is an experienced clinical leader with deep experience leading, shaping, and elevating the mental health industry. A strong healthcare services professional, John earned his Doctorate of Nursing Practice focused in Psych/Behavioral Health from Montana State University. From leading outpatient services to business operations to staff development to program planning, John’s impressive resume eventually led him to being Vice President of Behavioral Health for Phoenix Children’s. Now as evolvedMD’s first Chief Clinical Officer of Psychiatry, John oversees our psychiatric medication management services and associated programs to enhance patient care as part of our unique Collaborative Care model. Outside of work, you’ll find John tapping into his love for the great outdoors and cheering on the Baltimore Orioles.

Find John on LinkedIn.