The neighborhood health center is becoming a major locus of mental
health care delivery. Because of their strategic position at the
neighborhood level, mental health care systems in the comprehensive health
center locus have been able to develop linkages with both general health
and community mental health systems to provide a broad continuum of
coordinated health and mental health care. Four models identified in a
survey of 19 neighborhood mental health programs are described. The authors
suggest that persistent problems in coordination of care between
neighborhood mental health and other caregiving systems would be
considerably alleviated by a fiscal reimbursement scheme that rewarded
integration rather than fragmentation of care.Abstract Teaser