#42: How Do We Tolerate a System That is So Dysfunctional?

Future Of Mental Health

This week, we revisit a conversation on issues facing our mental health care system as a whole. Our guest, Dr. Patrick Conway, has experienced this system, “as an individual, as a family member, and as a practicing physician,” as well as at the top ranks of insurance companies. He is not satisfied with how the system does—and often does not—work, and has spent his career focused on mental health care reform.

"Our system doesn’t get access to people when and how they need it. It doesn’t measure and improve outcomes as it should. It doesn’t integrate well with primary care and whole-person care… It affects everyone in America in some fashion. So how do we tolerate a system that is so dysfunctional?” -Dr. Patrick Conway

Patrick Conway, MD, MSc, is the CEO of Care Solutions at Optum, part of UnitedHealth Group, serving tens of millions of people across acute and post-acute care, care in the home in-person and virtually, mental and behavioral care benefits and delivery, broad population and complex disease health management, specialty care, and government health services. He previously served as President and CEO of Blue Cross North Carolina, Chief Medical Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Director of Hospital Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and as Chief Medical Officer for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Join Marjorie Morrison and Patrick J. Kennedy for an in-depth discussion with Dr. Conway on the importance of combining treatment of mental and behavioral health, the impact of the pandemic on the mental health space, what effect new bio-metric technologies will have on mental health, and how Dr. Conway’s own experience with substance use inspires his work.

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