title: Monitoring patient improvement and treatment outcomes in managed behavioral health.
abstract: This study examined the use of outcome reports sent to clinicians by a managed behavioral healthcare organization to monitor patient progress and its relation to treatment outcome. Results showed that clinicians who reported using outcome information had patients who also reported greater improvement at 6 months from baseline. Improvement per session was greatest among patients whose clinicians reported reading the outcome report and using outcome measures in their clinical practice. Using baseline and ongoing measures to assess patient improvement can provide clinicians with feedback during treatment, which may lead to better clinical outcomes and enable quality management systems in managed care to flag high-risk cases and identify failure of adequate improvement.
authors.affiliation: United Behavioral Health, San Francisco, CA, USA. Francisca_azocar@uhc.com
authors.forename: Francisca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Azocar
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cuffel
authors.forename: Joyce
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McCulloch
authors.forename: John F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: McCabe
authors.forename: Shanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tani
authors.forename: Benjamin B
authors.initials: BB
authors.lastname: Brodey
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001524:Behavioral Medicine / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008329:Managed Care Programs / Q000592:standards*; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D012046:Rehabilitation; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014481:United States