The Missouri Child Psychiatry Access Project (MO-CPAP) helps primary care providers (PCPs) treat and manage behavioral health needs for children and adolescents, who may prefer to receive mental health care from their primary physician. Child and adolescent psychiatrists are available for consultation within 30 minutes of a request or at a scheduled time for patients 21 and younger.

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Through child psychiatry consultations, ongoing educational opportunities and linkage to connect patients with community-based behavioral health referral services, enrolled PCPs receive support treating mental health disorders in children and adolescents.

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Our Vision: To increase mental health care access and to support PCPs as they address mild to moderate behavioral health concerns in their practices.

An Established Need

As many as 1 in 4 of the nation's youth suffer from clinically significant behavioral health problems. Many children and adolescents do not receive treatment or experience significant delays before beginning treatment. MO-CPAP is designed to target consultation and educational outreach efforts to PCPs, because up to 75% of kids receive behavioral health care from a primary care provider.

Benefits to Primary Care Providers

By participating in the MO-CPAP Program, primary care providers receive access to:

  • Same-day telephone consultations with a child and adolescent psychiatrist within 30 minutes of a call or scheduled at a convenient time. Child and adolescent psychiatrists are available 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday (except major holidays) to provide behavioral health consultation, including diagnostic issues, medication management and treatment planning. MO-CPAP cannot provide emergency or crisis response care to patients or offer appointments with child and adolescent psychiatrists.
  • Follow-up care coordination to help primary care providers connect their patients with referral services to community-based behavioral health care and other resources for treatment in their area. Families may be referred directly to Behavioral Health Response (BHR) for follow-up services. Services are available through the MO-CPAP phone line and are provided by BHR 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
  • Ongoing education and training opportunities with the opportunity to earn free CME credit(s). MO-CPAP offers behavioral health skills training for PCPs. Webinars and training opportunities offered are informed by evidence-based guidelines in response to the priority needs of primary care providers, and cover topics including:
    • Best practice clinical guidelines, including diagnostics and pharmacological interventions.
    • Evidence-based screening tools and behavioral intervention options.
    • MO-CPAP-developed webinars on a variety of behavioral health topics, with CME credits available upon completion.
  • Quarterly MO-CPAP newsletters with information regarding behavioral health training, updates to best practice clinical guidelines, clinical alerts and the latest data on the MO-CPAP pilot.

Download Our Primary Care Principles Booklet

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MO-CPAP Participant Enrollment

To enroll and participate in the MO-CPAP program, please complete the form. Please direct any questions about the project or enrollment process to umhspsymo-cpap@health.missouri.edu.

Watch Missouri physicians and patients how MO-CPAP had personally impacted and helped them.

Program Funding

MO-CPAP is offered through the University of Missouri School of Medicine as a collaborative partnership among Behavioral Health Network (BHN), Assessment Resource Center (ARC), Missouri Telehealth Network (MTN), Behavioral Health Response (BHR), Washington University Pediatric and Adolescent Ambulatory Research Consortium (WU PAARC) and the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI-St. Louis).

This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number U4CMC32326, Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Program, with a total award amount of $2,125,000, 20% financed with non-governmental sources. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.

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