|
|
At MGH, the behavioral medicine service primarily delivers short-term, skills-based,
structured cognitive behavioral interventions for the following types of patients:
-
Patients with chronic illness and a mental health disorder who would benefit
from a cognitive-behavioral structured intervention.
-
Patients who are experiencing distress that may be affecting their health
(for example, a person with cardiac problems or family history who requires
stress management).
-
Patients with no psychiatric
diagnosis but who may need help with coping with
a chronic or acute medical illness. Issues may include
increasing self care or treatment/medication adherence.
Our treatment programs begin with an evaluation, which takes one to two visits.
At the end of the evaluation the patient and the treatment provider will discuss
the goals of the intervention and a plan for achieving these goals. After that,
the treatment program itself typically lasts 8 to 16 weekly sessions.
We
specifically treat patients
whose difficulties include a medical or health related
problem. Individuals with a psychiatric disorder or
psychological problem that does not involve a medical/health
related problem but would require a similar short-term
skills-based treatment, can be referred to the cognitive
behavioral therapy program.
General definition of behavioral
medicine: Behavioral Medicine
is the interdisciplinary field concerned with the
development and integration of behavioral, psychosocial,
and biomedical science knowledge and techniques relevant
to the understanding of health and illness, and the
application of this knowledge and these techniques
to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation
(definition from the
Society
of Behavioral Medicine
Web page).
How to be seen by us: If you are interested in being treated by one of our staff or fellows,
please request a referral from your MGH primary care provider. You may also call the central
triage staff in the
department of psychiatry
at 617•724•5600. Ask for central triage, and specifically state that you are interested in a
referral to the behavioral medicine service. You will then be matched to a provider by
insurance panel and provider availability. Due to the numerous referrals that we get,
priority is given to individuals with an MGH primary care provider.
The psychiatry department at MGH does not accept all insurances and the individual providers
vary from not accepting any insurance to being able to accept the full spectrum that this
department participates in. If you do not have an insurance accepted by the program, you may
elect to self-pay if your insurance allows it (Medicare, MassHealth and Free Care do not allow
this option).
|
