Horizon Collaborates with Quartet to Better Integrate Mental and Physical Care and Improve Total Patient Health

On Jan 5, 2018

In its ongoing effort to ensure that its members receive quality care in all aspects of their health and well-being, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon BCBSNJ) announced a new collaboration with Quartet, the technology company bridging physical and mental healthcare.

“Horizon is committed to helping our members achieve a higher state of wellness through an integrated approach that incorporates behavioral health in the overall medical care,” said Allen J. Karp, senior vice president, Healthcare Management for Horizon BCBSNJ. “With Quartet, primary care doctors will have new tools to more easily identify patients with behavioral health needs associated with their medical conditions and connect them to the specialists best suited to address those needs,” Karp said.

“More than 42 million adults in the U.S. have a chronic physical condition and an accompanying mental health issue that exacerbates the illness, reduces quality of life, and increases medical costs. This is simply unacceptable,” said David Liu, President of Quartet. “Horizon is a progressive and innovative insurer that recognizes the valuable role that technology can play in improving health outcomes. We jumped at the chance to team up with them to help New Jersey residents and are confident this relationship will yield many healthier and happier people.”

Doctor offices typically spend significant administrative time coordinating mental healthcare for patients. Quartet identifies patients with underlying mental health conditions and helps their primary care physicians initiate them into the right care, while facilitating a collaborative approach for ongoing care. The company is able to scale this model by creating a data-driven environment for shared patient management. Resources available through Quartet include a vetted network of local mental health specialists, live psychiatry consults for providers and customer service support for patients and providers.

“We simply cannot help people achieve their best overall health if we don’t treat mental health as an integral part of primary care — Quartet has helped thousands of patients already by using technology to bridge that gap,” said Patrick J. Kennedy, former Rhode Island congressman who championed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 and now sits on the Board of Quartet. “New Jersey residents deserve the quality care that Quartet and Horizon have teamed up to bring to our communities.”

The Quartet tool will begin to be offered to Horizon members through their primary care providers on January 1, 2018, with the goal to eventually expand the technology’s use membership-wide.  The Quartet collaboration is among several Horizon BCBSNJ initiatives to integrate medical care and behavioral health services. Additional programs focus on members with cardiac, respiratory and pain management issues where patients receive behavioral health therapy and coaching sessions through a telehealth platform, and a patient-centered Episode of Care program in which patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease are screened and treated for comorbid behavioral health conditions.

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