Building a Team

The following AIMS Center resources can help you staff and hire your collaborative care team:

Behavioral Health Care Manager
The behavioral health care manager coordinates the overall effort of the group and ensures effective communication among team members. A behavioral health care manager is a behavioral health professional, typically a counselor, clinical social worker, psychologist or psychiatric nurse, who performs all of the care management tasks including offering psychotherapy when that is part of the treatment plan. They also support the primary care provider (PCP) in their role by coordinating treatment, providing proactive follow-up of treatment response, alerting the PCP when the patient is not improving, supporting medication management, and facilitating communication with the psychiatric consultant regarding treatment changes.

Psychiatric Consultant
The psychiatric consultant supports the PCP and behavioral health care manager in treating patients with behavioral health problems. The psychiatric consultant may suggest treatment modifications for the PCP to consider, recommend the PCP see the patient for an in-person consultation, or consult on patients who are clinically challenging or who need specialty mental health services.

Care Team