How can we link general medical and behavioral health care? International models for practice and policy

Abstract

A range of integration models for providing effective care to individuals with comorbid general medical and behavioral health conditions have been described and tested in varied settings internationally for several subsets of this population. This column examines models in three countries selected to showcase implementation in a variety of health systems: the national health system in England, nationally regulated individual insurance market in the Netherlands, and a mixture of employer-sponsored and government-funded health insurance plans in Japan. The authors describe a set of key practices for and challenges to the successful implementation of these models.