Navigator Program Helps Those with Behavioral Health Issues

PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — The behavioral health system partnered with insurance coverage can be difficult, so Provincetown Health System took action and created a program to help patients navigate the system. The Community Resource Navigator Program provides patients with a full-time employee who is able to use existing resources to assure that patients’ needs are met.

In early April, town meeting voters and several selectmen approved $100,000 in funding to cover part of the operating budget for the project, according to Cape Cod Times. Outer Cape Health Services will also be given partial funding for a masters-level social worker to provide mental health counseling for the underserved areas.

Many who need the behavioral health system are most often the most underserved, said town Selectman Thomas Donegan, who dealt with a friend’s mental health challenges a year ago, according to Cape Cod Times. The confusion of receiving treatment has caused those with challenges to shy away from the system. While many times police dispatchers are able to help the mentally ill when a situation arises, follow-up care has proved difficult, which is why taking action became important to Provincetown.

Challenges in receiving care in the behavioral health system as well as treatment only being partially covered by health insurance has brought mental health to the forefront of many health systems. The Community Resource Navigator Program is one of dozens that have become available both in Massachusetts and nationwide that allows those seeking help to navigate the system.

The Community Resource Navigator Program has been designed for those who have sought help before but are now reluctant due to a bad experience or confusion about what is available to them, according to Cape Cod Times. The people who are hesitant to look for care usually end up on the radar of police and emergency medical services, said Marta Hansen, director of behavioral health services at Outer Cape Health Services, and that’s not where they belong. That is why Hansen plans on seeking referrals from police and doctors for individuals whom they believe would benefit from the navigator system, according to Cape Cod Times. The system will then reach out to the individual in order to build trust, and hopefully convince them to seek help again.

While the program was designed for Provincetown, Donegan believes people from outside of the area will also receive help and hopes that nearby towns such as Truro and Wellfleet will seek funding for a program similar to the navigator program. The $100,000 will also fund an evaluation of the program at then end of the first year from the Cambridge, Mass.-based Institute for Community Health.