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Atlas entry · Maine

MaineHealth's behavioral health integration in primary care

Last verified July 28, 2026 · Checked against an official source

Collaborative & Integrated Care

Verified facts

Program
MaineHealth Behavioral Health Integration
Organization
MaineHealth
Location
Portland, Maine

Reported by the program

The program describes the following on its official information, reviewed on July 28, 2026.

What it is
MaineHealth describes a program that integrates behavioral health clinicians into primary and specialty care practices, so patients can get help for mental and behavioral health conditions through their usual providers rather than through a separate referral.
How it grew
MaineHealth says it began implementing behavioral health integration in primary care in 2010, piloted the model at practices across several regions from 2010 to 2012, and by 2019 to 2020 had integrated behavioral health clinicians in roughly seventy practices across seven regions.
How the model works
The system describes primary and specialty providers being supported to screen for, diagnose, and manage behavioral health conditions, with office staff and clinicians collaborating with behavioral health care managers. Its integration work has been featured as a success story by the AHRQ Academy for Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care.

shrinkiatry context

Integrated, collaborative care is the model with the strongest evidence base for treating common conditions like depression and anxiety at scale, and it works by embedding behavioral health into the primary care team rather than bolting it on. MaineHealth's program is a long-running, system-wide example, built up over more than a decade across a large rural and urban footprint. For the Atlas, it anchors the collaborative and integrated care category with a real, documented, and independently recognized implementation, and it connects directly to shrinkiatry's coverage of the Collaborative Care Model elsewhere on the site.

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Sources

  1. MaineHealth, Behavioral Health Integration (official). https://www.mainehealth.org/mainehealth-behavioral-health/about-mainehealth-behavioral-health/behavioral-health-integration
  2. MaineHealth, Integrating Behavioral Health into Primary and Specialty Care. https://www.mainehealth.org/about-mainehealth/health-index-initiative/health-index-priority-behavioral-health/integrating-behavioral-health-primary-and-specialty-care

All Maine Atlas entries · The Atlas standards

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