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Wayne J. Katon, MD, Discusses How Collaborative Care Drives Quality
Wayne J. Katon, MD, professor of psychiatry, director of the division of health services and epidemiology, and vice chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington Medical School, says that people with psychiatric illness in primary care settings cost the system twice as much as those without mental illness. Comorbidities such as depression can add to those costs.
Wayne J. Katon, MD, professor of psychiatry, director of the division of health services and epidemiology, and vice chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington Medical School, says that people with psychiatric illness in primary care settings cost the system twice as much as those without mental illness. Comorbidities such as depression can add to those costs.
“Integrating models of care like collaborative care have been shown to improve the quality of care, meaning they’re more likely to get an evidence-based treatment like a psychotherapy or med that would help their depression, and also they have better outcomes,” says Dr Katon. “We’ve shown that you can actually save money, particularly with these comorbid populations, by providing better mental healthcare integrated within the primary care system.”
Managed Care Reflections: A Q&A With A. Mark Fendrick, MD, and Michael E. Chernew, PhD
December 2nd 2025To mark the 30th anniversary of The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), each issue in 2025 includes a special feature: reflections from a thought leader on what has changed—and what has not—over the past 3 decades and what’s next for managed care. The December issue features a conversation with AJMC Co–Editors in Chief A. Mark Fendrick, MD, director of the Center for Value-Based Insurance Design and a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; and Michael E. Chernew, PhD, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Professor of Health Care Policy and the director of the Healthcare Markets and Regulation Lab at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
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