26-0600-RFP Behavioral Health Coordinated Access Model

The County seeks to contract with an organization that offers sophisticated multichannel contact center capabilities and can activate a team of clinical behavioral health assessors with a local presence (CAM Team) to operate Care About Me, the Pinellas County Coordinated Access Model (CAM). In addition to triaging and screening behavioral health intakes as described herein, members of the CAM Team, as well as vendors' other staff, will serve as CAM program representatives and will market to and engage residents, referring partners, and clinical behavioral health providers in the operation and support of the CAM.

The awarded vendor will be expected to: provide CAM Team clinical staffing; provide administrative and program management leadership of the CAM; accept intakes from multiple avenues, including phone, text, chat, and email; utilize Care About Me’s portable vanity telephone number and active web address for intakes and information; provide call data and metrics; and utilize the county’s CAM Platform for information collection, assessment, appointment booking, system level analytics, and data sharing.

Priority will be given to vendors willing to onboard eligible clinical staff from the current CAM pilot to expedite program initiation and ensure program continuity, while hiring or providing existing staff for any additional team needs.

A 2019 review of the Pinellas County behavioral health system led to the strategic report, “Elevate Behavioral Health,” which outlined recommendations to strengthen patient-centric services, governance, funding prioritization, and performance management aimed at improving outcomes for the County’s residents. (See A ppendix A- Elevate Behavioral Health.) In interviews, residents, providers, and other stakeholders noted three challenges related to the County’s behavioral health system:

• Barriers to access and confusion around intake pathways: Residents do not know how to access behavioral health services, and thus, many do not receive care until they reach a crisis setting.
• Lack of warm handoff: Care providers offer similar and sometimes duplicative services without central coordination or “warm handoffs.”
• Lack of consistency: Practices for screening, triage, and transitioning residents to the appropriate level of care are inconsistent across care providers.

In response to these challenges, a core recommendation of the report was to implement a Coordinated Access Model (CAM). The CAM is designed to provide standardization, greater efficiency, and increased transparency in how residents, families, caregivers, and professionals can access the appropriate services within Pinellas County’s behavioral health system. The objectives of the CAM are to (1) improve access to care, (2) improve management of service demand, (3) improve transparency of information, (4) minimize duplication of services by standardizing the initial intake process for all agencies, and (5) improve consistency in resident and professional experience. Additionally, the CAM model was designed to ensure effective and efficient utilization of community services and resources funded by the Pinellas Integrated Care Alliance (PICA), a collaboration including Pinellas County Government, Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, Juvenile Welfare Board, Central Florida Behavioral Health Network, and the Department of Health in Pinellas.

The CAM is comprised of two main components: A) a team of clinical assessors and local program leads to operate the CAM, serve as program representatives to the community, and engage residents, referring partners, and providers (CAM Team) who utilize a multichannel intake system including a vanity phone/text number and a website with online chat capabilities, and B) a technology solution capable of facilitating the collection, secure storage, and sharing of demographic data and behavioral health screening assessments, virtual communication channels between the CAM Team, providers, and residents, and direct-to-system e-referrals, automated reminders, and automated follow up/survey messaging (CAM Platform).

In late 2021, the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners (Board), through its Human Services Department, issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to solicit a vendor or vendors to develop and initiate the CAM pilot program. The awarded vendor utilized their proprietary platform and other tools in partnership with Human Services to launch “Care About Me,” the branded Pinellas County Coordinated Access Model, which includes multiple intake pathways, a website, a dedicated vanity phone number, standardized screening and assessment process, direct scheduling with local and virtual providers, appointment reminders and follow up, and placement and attendance data insights, in alignment with the CAM model.

Since the soft launch in 2024, approximately 2,600 residents have contacted or been referred to CAM. CAM has onboarded 24 providers offering both in-person and virtual services across multiple levels of care. Residents are referred to their preferred provider based on location, appointment type, and insurance coverage or ability to pay.

As the current pilot nears the end of its initial contract term and many lessons have been learned throughout the pilot phase, the County seeks to continue the program in the most resident-efficient and cost-effective manner, with an additional targeted focus on increasing resident engagement with the CAM. Additionally, the Human Services Department onboarded a customizable internal case management software system over the past year, which will be built to serve as the CAM platform to allow for more program customization and significant cost savings. With the transfer of the CAM Platform portion of the model to this in-house system, the County is seeking to contract for the CAM Team and intake component through this request for proposals (RFP).