The Flathead Community Health Center recently was awarded a $167,000 grant that will go toward incorporating more integrated behavioral health services between the center and Gateway Community Services in Kalispell.

The federal Health Resources and Services Administration awarded just over $2 million in integrated behavioral service grants to Montana — a portion of the more than $200 million that was shelled out to 1,208 health centers nationwide to “help health centers increase access to high quality, integrated mental health and substance use disorders services, including opioid use disorder.”

Other award recipients in Montana include Community Health Partners Clinic in Livingston, Glacier Community Health Center in Cut Bank and Lincoln County Community Health Center in Libby. Montana as a whole received more than the Dakotas and Wyoming combined and received the same amount as Idaho.

“Community health centers across the country have really led the charge in integrated behavioral health,” said Leslie Diede, interim executive director for Flathead Community Health Center that is located at the Flathead City-County Health Department in Kalispell. “This grant shows the federal government is really behind what we are trying to do.”

Integrated behavioral health has been an emerging trend in health care in recent years and, broadly explained, involves streamlining medical services by coordinating behavioral health and primary care. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a growing body of research shows “integrated behavioral health improves health and patient experience, while reducing unnecessary costs in time, money, and delays.”

“The funding really helps us support what we have identified and describe as whole patient care,” Diede said.

The award to Flathead Community Health Center will go toward two main purposes, according to Diede.

The first is to help with the startup costs at Gateway Community Services, which recently expanded to Kalispell from Great Falls, taking over operations for the Flathead County Chemical Dependency Clinic in June. Officials with Gateway said the center in Kalispell will, in time, operate much like the one in Great Falls in which medical care professionals will work alongside chemical dependency specialists to treat patients. Officials with Gateway are working with those at Flathead Community Health Center to have this vision realized.

Second, the funds will go toward hiring what Diede described as an integrated care manager who will help “navigate patients through their treatment.” This includes the patients’ time at gateway and the community health center, any transportation or meal issues that may arise, and more.

Deide said originally the health center had requested $148,000 in financial assistance, but received $167,000 instead, as did each of the other 11 health centers in Montana.

She also said similar federal grants are given out every year, but go toward a different avenue of health care with stipulations on how grantees can spend the allotment. Last year, for example, the funds provided to the center went toward hiring a psychiatric mid-level provider at the center, among other mental-health needs. Another year the grants were awarded for various dentistry improvements.

Reporter Kianna Gardner can be reached at 758-4439 or kgardner@dailyinterlake.com