Staff Psychologist

This position is located within the Behavioral VA Care Line, with primary assignment to the Primary Care-Mental Health Integration (PC-MHI) program, located within primary care. The Psychologist functions as part of the multidisciplinary primary care teams, and delivers brief, consultation-based services to Veterans, primary care providers, and allied Patient Alliance Care Team (PACT) members.

PC-MHI Clinical Practice: The CCC PC-MHI psychologist provides functional assessment, triage, brief intervention, education and consultative services regarding a wide range of mental health and behavioral medicine concerns, on referral from primary care providers and allied PACT members. The PC-MHI psychologist uses population-based practice management strategies and maintains competences in the following core domains.

CCC PC-MHI Clinical Practice Management (Interventions):

• Conduct functional assessments, based on 30-minute appointments and will triage/refer to specialty care services as appropriate.
• Applies principals of population-based care ( defines role and identifies problems rapidly), 75% percentage of all appointments are 30 minutes (will vary by setting).
• Uses brief assessments routinely (e.g., PHQ-9, PCL, AUDIT C, etc.).
• Initial consultation appointment are based on functional assessments and treatment focuses on functional outcomes.
• Maintains daily open access slots and manages these to best account for time, with no more than 35% of open access slots going unfilled.
• Provides brief mental health and behavioral interventions (e.g.,1-5 sessions for broad range of concerns).
• Uses time-limited, evidence based, interventions that are simple and concrete.
• Uses self-management/home-based practice interventions.
• Uses intermittent visit strategy and flexible patient contact strategies.
• Triages appropriately and efficiently to specialty mental health services.
• Provide behavioral medicine interventions (including but not limited to stepped care level 2 tobacco cessation, alcohol misuse, weight management, and coping with chronic illness), stress management. sleep hygiene, relaxation training, and other interventions will be provided as clinically appropriate, based on patient.
• Leads MOVE Group, or co-leads with other team members.

• Staff psychologists respond to consults within the time limits specified by the Psychology Service and Medical center policies. They develop and maintain a reasonable caseload of patients that meets performance objectives. They comply with national and local performance measures, including timely health care screening and completion of clinical reminders.
• Staff psychologists also maintain relationships with management, co-workers, patients, and the general public. Specifically, they are courteous, respectful, and cooperative in nature.
• Staff psychologists will proactively and innovatively adapt their clinics to meet Veteran and VA goals, improve efficiency and increase cooperation between departments.

• Maintains/submits required documentation in a timely, complete and accurate manner in accordance with Psychology Service and Medical Center policies and procedures, without inaccuracies and/or tardiness.
• Develops written procedures as requested to facilitate the timely and efficient delivery of psychological services.

• Assists in the execution of ongoing program evaluation and data-driven quality improvement projects to monitor the effectiveness of the clinical program.
• Completes mandatory VA training requirements in a timely fashion.
• Attends psychology-related training to maintain expertise in assigned work area.
• Attends Psychology staff meetings, Medical staff meetings, and Mental Health Service staff meetings. Complies with Psychology pertinence review procedures as well as credentialing and privileging procedures.