BEHAVIORAL HEALTH - INTEGRATED
Behavioral Health Integration
Working as a team with residents and faculty to help provide counseling and psychological support to help patients achieve their health goals is a great way to deliver care. Our level of integration in our tier 5 Patient Centered Medical Homes, includes the ability to do crisis intervention, warm handoffs, close follow up and assistance when emergent care is needed. Our graduates seek out jobs with integrated Behavioral Health as they see the benefit of linked compassionate care incorporating mind and body together.
By incorporating whole person mental and physical care we can help patients find a lighter path forward from the dark struggles with which they are grappling.
Cradle to grave behavioral health services model the same kind of breadth and scope as family medicine itself. Behavioral health services are adjunct to the services provided by residents and faculty. We have the time medical providers may not always have to do a deep dive into why a patient is struggling in order to improve therapeutic alliance, goals of care, and to improve health outcomes.
We aim to ease the burden of care and improve patient experience through providing diagnostic differential, consultation, short term psychotherapy, and maximizing health and behavior goals.
Along with clinical pharmacy, we work to ease resident burden in often being asked to be de facto psychiatrists by assuring accurate diagnoses and appropriately triaging level of care. We also frequently liaise with community and hospital psychological and psychiatric services to improve the care our patients get while outside of the clinic.
Dr. Jennifer Hill
Dr. Jennifer Hill provides behavioral health treatment for our family medicine patients in the Milwaukie clinic, teaches psychology trainees & medical residents, and is active in our residency's in-house substance use programs. In addition to being a licensed psychologist, she specializes in chemical dependency issues, personality disorders, and anxiety. She loves her job with the residency because it involves all the best things: working with interdisciplinary teams, being inspired daily by a community of lifelong learners, and helping treat people at various places in the lifespan.
After growing up in Colorado and Wyoming, she still feels most at home under a clear blue sky with a mountain on the horizon and she has made Portland her home since 2008. A desire to help patients focus on health, wellness, prevention and treatment, led to her studying psychology. She trained at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD and at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
Hobbies and wellness favorites include: Cooking, reading, yoga, travel, walking on her lunch break, and camping. She is a cat person.