“The platform has been amazing, helping us ensure patients leave the office with an appointment already made. They feel supported, understood and part of the process of choosing their own care.”
Ana Dominguez, LMHC – Sanitas Medical Centers
Delivering quality health care requires treating the whole person. Yet integrating behavioral and physical health at scale remains one of health care’s biggest challenges. In our recent webinar, “Supporting Behavioral & Physical Health Integration in Medical Care Facilities,” Arbjola Novikov (Customer Success Director at Lucet) and Ana Dominguez, LMHC (Behavioral Health Counselor at Sanitas Medical Centers) shared how technology and structured collaboration can transform this fragmented health system into a seamless, coordinated care model.
The need for integrated, whole-person care
Many patients in primary care settings have behavioral health needs such as depression, anxiety or substance use alongside physical conditions. When these issues are treated separately, patients can easily fall through the cracks. Effective integration can help close these gaps by enabling early identification and supporting essential components of behavioral health treatment, including therapy, medication adherence and ongoing support.
“Delivering the best possible care requires us to treat the whole person, not just the symptoms in isolation,” said Novikov.
For this to be sustainable, collaboration must be operationalized through real, on-the-ground workflows. Lucet makes this possible by embedding transition-of-care specialists, such as Sanitas’ BeWell clinicians, directly into primary care practices. These specialists act as critical bridges, supporting patients across the full acuity spectrum, from crisis intervention to care management referrals.
NavConnect™: A tech-enabled front door to care
The cornerstone of Lucet’s integration model is NavConnect™, a tech-enabled front door for behavioral health services. The platform streamlines the care process for payers and providers through four essential steps:
- Identify: Patients are recognized through primary care provider (PCP) referrals or proactive outreach.
- Navigate: A proprietary clinical screener triages members based on clinical acuity and risk level, using Lucet’s Behavioral Health Index (BHI®), developed from more than 14 million assessments, to quantify distress.
- Connect: Members are directly scheduled with clinically appropriate behavioral health providers or resources, eliminating the outdated manual practice of giving patients a list of phone numbers to call on their own.
- Measure: The system continuously tracks outcomes, quality and overall value using measurement-informed care tools, ensuring ongoing improvement and effective value-based care operations.
The NavConnect screener takes about five minutes to administer, quickly matching patients with the right provider based on specialty, language preferences, care modality (virtual or in-person) and acuity.
“NavConnect turns what often can be a fragmented, frustrating process into a guided, data-driven journey,” Novikov explained.
Integration in action: the Sanitas BeWell program
Ana Dominguez, LMHC shared her experience implementing NavConnect within Sanitas Medical Centers’ BeWell collaborative care program, a model focused on integrated, high-quality, coordinated care.
Before NavConnect, patients referred for behavioral health often failed to follow through due to long waiting lists or difficulty connecting with providers. As a result, many returned months later with recurring symptoms. Now, BeWell clinicians can schedule behavioral health appointments for patients before they even leave the PCP’s office. This direct scheduling capability has significantly improved follow-through and engagement with care.
“The platform has been amazing, helping us ensure patients leave the office with an appointment already made,” said Dominguez. “They feel supported, understood and part of the process of choosing their own care.”
Patient success
Dominguez described a 19-year-old female who presented with anxiety, mild depression, and difficulty focusing. After assessment and consultation with the program’s psychiatrist, clinicians suspected ADHD, which was outside of the BeWell program’s scope.
Using NavConnect, Dominguez immediately referred and scheduled the patient with a psychiatrist specializing in ADHD, accommodating her preference for a virtual visit due to her college schedule. Within a week, she received a diagnosis of ADHD (inattentive type with hyperactivity and impulsiveness), began medication, and continued follow-up care for anxiety. The speed and personalization of this connection proved critical to her recovery and academic performance.
Positive feedback and measurable impact
The integrated system has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from both patients and clinicians. Patients highlight how easy and fast it is to schedule care and value leaving the office with an appointment already confirmed. Many note that choosing providers based on language, specialty or modality preferences makes them feel confident and supported. Further, providers appreciate knowing their patients will be seen within two weeks instead of waiting months. This reliability strengthens collaboration between behavioral and primary care teams and enhances continuity of care.
As health care organizations continue to advance value-based care initiatives, the success of the BeWell program with NavConnect demonstrates how technology can operationalize whole-person care by bridging the gap between behavioral and physical health to deliver faster, more effective outcomes.
Rachel Jenkins is a marketing manager at Lucet.
