Clinical Psychologist

Summary

This Primary Care Mental Health Integration Psychologist position is administratively aligned with Psychology Service within the Mental Health Service Line and is assigned as a Co-located Collaborative Care behavioral health consultant in Primary Care. PCMHI is a component of the interdisciplinary Patient Aligned Care Team. The PCMHI CCC psychologist provides brief, evidence-based interventions, education, and consultation services to Veterans, Primary Care Providers, and allied PACT members.

Duties

The PCMHI psychologist provides functional assessment, triage, brief intervention, education, and consultative services regarding a wide range of possible concerns. Consistent with the VA Whole Health philosophy, the PCMHI psychologist promotes awareness of the important mental and behavioral aspects of wellness and overall health outcomes. The PCMHI psychologist utilizes a Population-Based Care and Public Health approach, recognizing the PCP as the overall leader of the treatment team and maximizing the reach of services to as many Veterans as possible. The PCMHI psychologist accepts referrals from PCPs and allied PACT members and supports guideline-concordant treatment within primary care. The PCMHI psychologist maintains competencies in the following core domains:
Collaborates with PCPs and the interdisciplinary PACT to support high quality, effective, and coordinated service delivery at the patient and programmatic levels
- Maintains daily open access slots and encourages same day warm handoffs within PACT
- Completes most individual appointments (e.g., 75%) within 30 minutes
- Uses Measurement Based Care (MBC) in accordance with nationally recommended guidelines for PCMHI
- Conducts initial functional assessments that are focused on the main reason(s) for referral and are less extensive than traditional mental health intake evaluations (e.g., 30 minutes vs. 60 or 90 minutes for traditional evaluation)
- Supports stepped-care principles to facilitate "on-time, on target" services to Veterans, matching the intensity of services with the level of clinical need
- Refers Veterans with more severe or complex needs to the appropriate general or specialty mental health program
- Provides time-limited, brief, evidence-based, individual or group interventions (e.g., approximately 1-6 sessions) for a broad range of behavioral health and health behavior concerns within the primary care setting
- Utilizes intermittent visits and flexible patient contact strategies to support brief but longitudinal PCMHI care as part of PACT
- Ensures quality of care by successfully completing the national VA PCMHI Competency Training Program (or approved equivalent) and associated ongoing education modules

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Telework: Ad HOC
Functional Statement #: 000000
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Authorized for eligible personnel.
Financial Disclosure Report: Not required

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