‘An Unprecedented Opportunity’

Meadows Institute Chief Policy Officer reveals the promise of mental health policy at the NeuroFlow Summit 2024

September 24, 2024

John Snook, chief policy officer at the Meadows Institute, and Matt Miclette, vice president of clinical operations at NeuroFlow

The COVID-19 pandemic that ravaged this country didn’t start America’s mental health crisis, but it did shine a spotlight on the scope of the problem.

As a result, “we are in a unique moment,” according to John Snook, chief policy officer for the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute.

Partisan gridlock and the ever-present threat of a government shutdown continue to rankle Washington, D.C., but mental health stands out as a rare example of a bipartisan issue on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures, Snook told an audience of behavioral health providers and health care payers at the NeuroFlow Summit 2024 in Philadelphia on September 18.

He made his remarks during a fireside chat titled “A Deep Dive into Strategy, Policy, Quality and the Future of Measurement” with NeuroFlow’s vice president of clinical operations, Matt Miclette.

“There is real interest in getting this [issue] right among policymakers,” Snook said. “Things are happening for mental health that are not happening for a lot of other issues,” he said, pointing to the passage of the COMPLETE Care Act out of the Senate Finance Committee and the creation by the Centers for Disease Control of a new Behavioral Integration Branch.

Snook also singled out the Biden Administration’s handing down of a long-anticipated final rule on parity earlier this month, which will help ensure improved access to quality mental health. A key takeaway from the new guidance, he said, is the federal government’s prioritization of data, which he framed as both a warning and an opportunity for behavioral health tech companies.

“If you aren’t doing effective data management, you are in trouble,” Snook cautioned the audience. Otherwise, he said, “I don’t see how you meet the requirements around comparative analysis, what you have to report back to the federal government.”

And yet, Snook added, increased emphasis on measuring outcomes opens an opportunity for proponents of integrated behavioral care models like the Collaborative Care Model, which brings together physical and mental health care within the same primary care provider’s office and measures both clinical outcomes and patient goals.

Miclette asked Snook what companies like NeuroFlow can do to further behavioral health integration.

Snook responded by encouraging them to support of the COMPLETE Care Act, which is pending in Congress as part of its end-of-year spending package. The bill is a “no-brainer” for policymakers, he said. “The only risk is inertia. They need to hear from organizations: ‘get this done.’”

Snook urged the audience to share their data, either in one-on-one meetings with lawmakers or, preferably, he said, by working through large, coordinated groups like the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association. “All of these groups are engaged, and there are lots of opportunities to bring this issue to the fore,” Snook said.

“We are in a real moment of opportunity, an unprecedented time for mental health. There is so much we can do together.”

Audience members listen to Snook and Miclette’s fireside chat during the NeuroFlow Summit 2024