TeleCare
Health Care Professionals
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Depression Care Management?
- Depression Care Management is a confidential program that provides professional and compassionate one-to-one outreach and ongoing support to individuals with depression. Often employer funded, the program is clinically proven to improve treatment outcomes, to help individuals feel better about themselves, improve their quality of life at home and in the workplace, and be more productive at both.
What kind of training does the Depression Care Manager have?
- Depression Care Managers are nurses or professionals with a mental health background who are trained to support depressed patient efforts to complete the type of depression treatment that will lead to full recovery. For patients who fail to improve, Depression Care Managers often work in partnership with a consultation-liaison psychiatrist who identifies alternative treatments for the primary care provider’s consideration.
How can a Depression Care Manager help my patients?
- Over twenty randomized controlled trials demonstrate that primary care patients achieve better clinical outcomes when primary care providers team with Depression Care Managers to provide ongoing depression treatment. 78% of depressed patients with ongoing Depression Care Management will be in remission at two years, compared to 40% with primary care treatment alone.
How can a Depression Care Manager help me?
- Depression Care Managers strengthen the capacity of primary care to provide evidence-based treatment for depression. Depression Care Managers assist by providing education to counter the misbeliefs that many depressed patients hold about depression (i.e. depression indicates an individual is weak) and its treatment (i.e. antidepressant medication is addictive). Care managers also assist healthcare professional by identifying patients who have stopped treatment without telling the healthcare professional and by identifying patients who may benefit from a treatment change.
What do I have to do differently with my patients in Depression Care Management?
- Nothing. With patient permission, Depression Care Managers will contact healthcare professional by phone or fax (whatever the healthcare professional prefers) to discuss patients who have discontinued treatment or may benefit from a treatment change.
Who pays for Depression Care Management?
- Depression Care Management is a benefit that many employers provide because companies realize a return on investment when patients recover from depression and contribute more at work. Patients whose employers do not provide Depression Care Management can purchase it on their own.
Why isn't Depression Care Management available to all my patients?
- Physicians who practice outside of integrated delivery systems treat patients with many different kinds of health benefits. Some employers provide Depression Care Management. Other employers do not. Patients whose employers do not provide Depression Care Management can purchase it on their own.
