The Story of CNS
Outpatient behavioral healthcare is unlike other areas of outpatient medicine and healthcare. It is a very difficult system to navigate; mostly because it is not a system at all. Aside from some major medical centers, mental healthcare is a non-system of sorts; it is basically a loose and fragmented collection of clinicians scattered throughout the community. If a patient is seeing their doctor and needs a referral for a specialist, that patient leaves the office with a list of only a few specialists around town. The patient then has to call each specialist hoping that they have an opening in their schedule. Usually, there is quite a long wait to see such specialists. And with luck, that specialist will talk with your doctor about your case in detail only once or twice.
Prior to forming CNS, this was the exact dilemma that our clinicians faced. Indeed, it was out of this dilemma from which the idea of CNS was born. We wanted to bring the field of mental healthcare up to date with the rest of modern healthcare, and hopefully more. In short, we wanted to provide the most optimal care as possible to our patients.
Navigating these challenges can be just as frustrating for a clinician as it is for their patient. At a medical center or at a residential program, we see parts of the system work well; there are teams of clinicians all collaborating together to provide good care for their patients. Doctors know the other doctors, consultants, and clinicians to whom they are referring their patients. However, when it comes time to discharge patients back to the community, the problems of the decentralized outpatient system again materialize. Inpatient clinicians often don’t even know the clinicians to whom they refer patients in the community.
At CNS, we have created an integrated & interdisciplinary team of multiple clinicians and specialists. For those individuals who need more than traditional outpatient mental healthcare, CNS can help restore someone to health without the disruption of an intense hospitalization or living at a residential facility.When an individual receives care from CNS, they benefit not only from one clinician, but from an array of clinicians. To facilitate this rest… blah
However, not everyone needs to utilize such comprehensive care. Many of our patients at CNS have ongoing treatment by one clinician, just as with traditional outpatient care.For those individuals who already have their own doctor or other clinician, CNS also offers consultations where our specialists will perform in-depth evaluations and will then provide recommendations to the patient as well as their doctor.