Behavioral health needs are a major driver of overall healthcare use and yet they are still often overlooked across the care continuum. The total health care costs of undertreated behavioral health disorders are more than $290 billion each year in the U.S. alone. When behavioral health issues go unmet or undiagnosed, members tend to experience more medical complications, and their care becomes harder to coordinate. This makes it difficult for care teams to move the needle on engagement or stability when the behavioral health issues influencing a member’s day-to-day life are not being addressed.
When behavioral health needs are not addressed, the entire care ecosystem, including plans and providers, often invests time and resources in ways that miss the real drivers of instability and rising costs. Traditional outreach like postcards, automated calls, and scripted reminders were never built for members with significant behavioral health challenges. A reminder to schedule a mammogram or colonoscopy does not land when someone is managing severe depression, anxiety, trauma, or the daily effort required just to function. If a member cannot reliably get out of bed, secure transportation, or keep track of appointments, informational outreach does not register. The issue is not awareness. It is whether the member has the capacity, the readiness, and the trust needed to engage.
The Role of Trust in Behavioral Health Engagement
Trust is often the starting point for meaningful engagement. Members are more likely to respond when the interaction feels personal and grounded in real listening. Human-centered engagement focuses on real conversations and thoughtful questions that help reveal what is happening in a member’s life. Teams that use relational approaches pay attention to barriers the member may not say outright, such as untreated anxiety that keeps them home, fear or confusion about the healthcare process, or the emotional strain of recent events. These interactions bring forward the reasons behind missed appointments and gaps in care. When the connection feels genuine, members are more willing to take steps toward care. Trust creates conditions for engagement and stability, and without it, progress is difficult.
Social Barriers That Derail Care
Behavioral health challenges often appear alongside social needs that make it difficult for members to stay connected to care. Members who are navigating unstable housing, limited transportation, food insecurity, or unsafe environments often struggle to participate in care even when they want to. Many of these social challenges commonly co-occur with behavioral health conditions, creating even more complexity in how members navigate care. A care plan cannot move forward if it depends on stability the member does not have. Daily crises and unmet basic needs make participation nearly impossible. Identifying these barriers early through open, human-centered conversation helps care teams and community partners understand what support is needed. Addressing behavioral health and social needs together is essential because they often influence each other.
Measuring the Impact of Human-Centered Engagement
Human-centered and relationship-based engagement gives members the kind of steady support that helps them stay connected to care. When someone reaches out with consistency and genuine interest, members are likely to participate more fully in their treatment plans because the guidance they receive fits their day-to-day reality. Care teams gain a clearer picture of what members are dealing with, since real conversations surface stressors and barriers that standard outreach often misses. With this insight, providers and health plan teams can respond in ways that are more timely, appropriate, and effective. Meaningful changes like these come from trust, continuity, and a real relationship, not from increasing the number of calls or reminders.
Why Engagement Models Need to Change
It’s clear that behavioral health engagement requires more than transactional outreach or one-size-fits-all communication. Automated messages and rigid scripts move quickly, but they cannot capture the complexity of what many members are dealing with. Without rethinking how engagement works, organizations may continue to fund programs and interventions that never reach the members who need them most. Supporting behavioral health engagement is not just a clinical task, it is a shared responsibility across the system.
The Case for Partnering with Relationship-Based Engagement Teams
Behavioral health barriers often touch many parts of a member’s life, which means effective engagement requires more than basic outreach skills. Teams trained in relationship building and motivational communication are better equipped to reach members who have stepped away from care. Their work gives providers and plans clearer visibility into what members are facing, which helps guide more effective support. With that foundation, relationship-based engagement reaches members traditional outreach cannot and helps them regain stability.
Human-centered engagement is not a nice-to-have, it’s often the missing link in behavioral health because it gives members the steady support they need to return to care and move forward.
Lauren Barca, MHA, RN, BSN is VP of Quality of 86Borders, a human-first care coordination and member engagement company that helps health plan members overcome obstacles to care – especially among hard-to-reach populations.
For more information, contact Lacy Herman at lacy@andersoni.com or visit Andersoni.com.
