Impact of the Collaborative Care Model on Medical Spending

OBJECTIVES: The collaborative care model integrates mental health care into primary care. In 2017, CMS created new billing codes to reimburse collaborative care. We measured the impact of a program supported by these codes on medical spending. STUDY DESIGN: Quasi -experimental. METHODS: We identified a commercially insured and managed Medicare sample of 825 patients who received collaborative care services in 8 primary care practices. We used propensity score matching to match treated patients to potential controls, resulting in 569 patients per group. We performed a difference-in-differences regression analysis to evaluate the impact of collaborative care on total medical spending, including medical, psychiatric, and pharmaceutical claims. RESULTS: Collaborative care patients' mean total medical cost began to fall after a patient's third month in the program and fell below the mean cost of control patients at month 7. Difference-in-differences regressions indicate a nonsignificant savings in total medical cost of $29.35 per member per month for patients in collaborative care compared with matched controls (95% CI, -$226.52 to $167.82). Treated members incurred $34.11 (95% CI, $31.95-$36.27) higher primary care costs that were directly attributed to collaborative care, $19.91 (95% CI, $4.84-$34.98) higher costs for other mental or behavioral health care, and a nonsignificant reduction of $91.34 (95% CI, -$319.32 to $136.63) in inpatient costs. CONCLUSIONS: Modest spending on collaborative care services to address the behavioral health needs of patients did not increase overall health care costs. This is the first economic study of a collaborative care program supported by the new billing codes.