When Frontline Practice Innovations Are Ahead of the Health Policy Community: The Example of Behavioral Health and Primary Care Integration

Innovation in health care delivery often far outpaces the speed at which health policy changes to accommodate this innovation. Integrating behavioral health and primary care is a promising approach to defragment health care and help health care achieve the triple aim of decreasing costs, improving outcomes, and enhancing patients' experiences. However, the problem remains that health policy does not frequently support the integration of care. This commentary describes some of the reasons policy falters as well as potential opportunities to begin to influence health policy to better support practices that take an integrated approach to health care.