As American healthcare systems grapple with an unprecedented epidemic of mental illness, they require enhanced capacity to care for the millions of patients suffering nationwide. This is a crisis that demands quick innovation from the healthcare sector. Here, joint venture facilities are playing a critical role.
Americans perceive that the nation’s mental health crisis is real and growing. Pew found that 90 percent of adults believe we are in the midst of one, while one in five Americans say they experience mental illness. Overall, one in every 20 Americans is suffering from a mental illness deemed “severe,” amounting to nearly 13 million people. At the same time, 15 percent of adults indicate they struggle with substance abuse, but 94 percent of those individuals do not currently receive treatment.
Meanwhile, rates of anxiety, depression, and substance use disorder have increased not only in America, but globally. International incidence of mental health disorders have skyrocketed 25 percent since just 2020.
Amid surging demand for behavioral healthcare, Americans are finding the supply of practitioners sparser than ever. Sadly, behavioral health practitioners are leaving the field in droves. Spurred by widespread burnout, stress-inducing conditions and waning resources, a chronic shortage of practitioners is touching every corner of the nation. In fact, more than half of all counties in the US lack a single psychiatrist. Last year, 55 percent of adults battling a mental illness received no treatment. More than a quarter of all adults suffering reported they were not able to receive the treatment they sought. In fact, more than 150 million Americans live in a designated “mental health professional shortage zone.”
Simply put, demand for mental health practitioners already far outweighs supply, and this gap is all but certain to intensify as America’s mental health situation further deteriorates.
In crisis, many health systems have turned to joint venture partnerships with behavioral healthcare companies to expand their treatment services and hone their expertise in the field. Health systems often lack the capacity to adequately treat behavioral health patients, often due to a combination of factors, especially a lack of available workers and low-profit margins in the specialty. Joint ventures allow these health systems to turn to behavioral health experts to oversee these services while increasing access to more patients who require treatment.
This is possible because these types of partnerships allow entities to pool their resources, both physical, often in the form of new or repurposed facilities, and as importantly, their know-how. In mental healthcare, joint ventures allow hospitals to benefit from the expertise of behavioral health clinicians. On the other side, by partnering with hospitals, behavioral health providers can tap into the resources afforded by a large healthcare facility, cutting down on administrative costs and allowing them to access locations where they are critically needed.
By pooling talent, healthcare institutions can leverage the ideas, research and practices of a new, larger workforce at their facilities. Moreover, by collaborating with academic institutions, behavioral healthcare facilities can tap into a pipeline of future talent, building a qualified workforce for years to come. This arrangement benefits the burnt-out practitioners overwhelmed with unprecedented demand and their patients desperately needing comprehensive care.
Joint ventures can help. They combine resources, from cutting-edge technology to expert staff, to strengthen the healthcare talent pool. Collaboration allows all parties – nurses, psychiatrists, social workers, researchers and more – to lean on one another as they forge newfound partnerships and enhanced networks of support within medical facilities.
Partnerships forged through joint venture agreements also enable stakeholders to better advocate changes in behavioral healthcare. By bringing together practitioners, stakeholders are in a better position to highlight the field’s areas of need and reforms that would benefit providers and patients alike.
Collective action is crucial to combat the mental health crisis. Beyond operational benefits, joint ventures empower providers to work together toward a common goal: rehabilitating the millions of Americans currently struggling with mental health disorders. Concerns about the financial motives of for-profit behavioral health companies can be mitigated by a joint venture with mission-driven hospital systems that have significant accountability for high-quality, reliable, and patient-centered care.
Leaders of hospital systems face all kinds of difficult decisions, but joint ventures are becoming an increasingly easy call for many of them. They’re a key to fostering a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable future for behavioral health in America.
Dr. Jonathan Ellen is the founder of Connections for Health and former CEO of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.
