In July 2020, the Florida Medicaid Drug Therapy Management Program for Behavioral Health changed its name to The Florida Program for Behavioral Health Improvements and Solutions (FCBHIS) to reflect its focus and commitment to promote evidence-based behavioral health services to all Florida individuals with behavioral health concerns regardless of insurance carrier.

The FCBHIS is a multifaceted Program designed to:

1. Promote evidence-based prescribing of psychotropic medications to adults and children/youths utilizing multiple strategies including consensus-building expert panels to develop evidence based-treatment algorithms and quality improvements strategies to disseminate this information to providers.
2. Improve timely access to behavioral health services to underserved communities living in rural Florida counties. With funding provided by the Department of Health – Children Medical Services, the Program is currently participating in a telepsychiatry project designed to provide timely access to child/adolescent psychiatrists, improve the skills of pediatricians to treat the most common behavioral health conditions. Using the collaborative model approach, the Program has currently enrolled seven pediatric practices and served over 400 children/adolescents. 
3. The Program places a paramount importance on collaboration with the many stakeholders caring for this population and includes Florida state agencies such Department of Health, Agency for Healthcare Administration, managed care organizations, community mental health centers, Florida medical societies, Florida universities, advocacy organizations and community agencies to ensure continuity of care.
4. The Program is constantly evolving to reflect current events and findings affecting behavioral health such as geographic and race inequities, integration of behavioral and physical health, social determinants of health such as food and housing and linkages with community programs and resources.
5. To mitigate the chronic shortages of behavioral health providers, the Program is also involved in finding ways to broaden the traditional behavioral healthcare workforce.

The Program continues to host the Florida Behavioral Health Collaborative Pediatric Hotline (1-866-487-9507) to provide a wide range of services including psychotherapeutic medication consultations provided by a child/adolescent psychiatrist. The Pediatric Hotline is coordinated by a care coordinator/resource navigator who makes all necessary referrals and scheduling of appointments to psychiatrists psychosocial treatments and other consultations as required by the individual clinical presentations of each patient. Patient-focused telepsychiatry consultations are available to all providers regardless of insurance carrier caring for children/adolescents up to 21 years old. The hotline is a free resource and calls are answered on non-holiday weekdays between 8:30 am and 4:30 pm.

Over the years the Program has built a strong network of stakeholders and collaborators.  With their help it is our sincere desire to contribute to the improvement of a better quality of behavioral health services for all Floridians suffering with behavioral health conditions and support their families/friends/caregivers with support provided by services in their communities.