The Beacon Difference – Urgent Slots Program

In one of our geographically challenging service areas, we identified an escalating need for urgent (within 48 hours) outpatient mental health therapy and psychopharmacology appointments. Requests were increasing in volume from both members and primary care practitioners (PCPs). And we saw something else – that due to external factors not in our control, the outpatient network was facing challenges meeting urgent access demands. Resolving this problem required a thoughtful intervention on our part.

We immediately began to peel back the layers surrounding the issue and found that frequently, PCPs working to get their patients behavioral health care did not have quick access to treatment resources. The result was a growing number of primary care patients directed to emergency rooms for behavioral health care, resulting in unnecessary psychiatric hospitalizations and fragmentation in care.

Our analysis revealed that knowledge of, and timely access to, outpatient behavioral health services was the main driver of the problem. With this in mind, we developed our Urgent Slots Program to ensure that members with an urgent need for behavioral health services have immediate access to therapy or psychopharmacology appointments. The ultimate goal of this intervention is to stabilize and maintain members in the community, when appropriate, by providing timely access to outpatient therapy.

The heart of our Urgent Slots Program centers on providing members and their primary care providers immediate access to prepaid, one hour slots for initial diagnostic or psychopharmacological evaluation with selected network providers. Prepaid slots purchased by Beacon are procured by specialty, based on the specific clinical needs of health plan members. Particular emphasis is placed on purchasing slots that give members access to child psychiatrists.

To access an urgent slot, the PCP, member or member representative simply calls Beacon’s Clinical Department. Our clinicians then provide members with access to one of the available slots with an Urgent Slot provider.

Since implementing the program, our member satisfaction rate, as measured by the ECHO, has risen with 90% of members indicating that they were “very satisfied” with access to urgent care. Results show that 96% of members who utilized an urgent slot were successfully maintained in the community and of these members, 94% had a follow up outpatient appointment within seven days following access to stabilization services via the Urgent Slots Program.

Providers have responded enthusiastically to the Urgent Slot Program saying, “Great idea!”, “Having immediate access to these specialized appointments is a tremendous help to us.” and “Thanks for putting this together”.