The Future of Behavioral Health: A Call to Action for Our Community 

The behavioral health field is undergoing a seismic shift, and the findings of our recent research have laid bare both the opportunities we can seize and the challenges we must overcome. As I reflect on these results, I see a call to action for all of us—a chance to address persistent issues head-on with the creativity, empathy, and urgency that our community demands.  

Here are my thoughts on how we can tackle these challenges together and create a future that better supports providers, facilities, and, most importantly, patients. 

Burnout is at a critical point in behavioral health. Clinicians are overwhelmed by administrative burdens, and it’s affecting their ability to provide care at the level they want to—and patients need. Our research validates that reducing administrative demands is one of the most effective ways to combat burnout. Technology, specifically AI, is emerging as a key tool in this effort, offering clinicians the ability to reclaim valuable time for patient care. 

The future is not about replacing clinical decision making, it’s about optimizing the time the clinicians spend on non-clinical tasks. By automating routine documentation, note-taking, scheduling, and communications, AI can significantly reduce the time spent on administrative duties. This allows care teams to focus more on what matters most: patient care and meaningful clinician-patient interactions. 

Ultimately, the true value of AI lies in its ability to meet the needs of both clinicians and patients. By giving clinicians back the time and mental bandwidth they need to connect with patients, we can reduce burnout, improve clinician well-being, and, most importantly, enhance the quality of care patients receive. As a healthcare community, we must ensure that technology is developed with the needs of those on the front lines in mind—supporting clinicians in their work, so they can better support their patients. 

The phrase “no money, no mission” might seem blunt, but it’s an unavoidable truth for every behavioral health facility. Our research confirms that revenue cycle stability is a fundamental pillar of operational health. We can’t deliver care if we can’t keep our doors open, and we can’t sustain our teams if we can’t pay them reliably. Clean claims and timely payments are not administrative niceties—they’re vital lifelines. 

To secure the financial stability of your facility, it’s crucial to prioritize revenue cycle management. Consider the following actions: 

• Invest in processes and tools that minimize errors, reduce claim rejections, and maximize reimbursements. 

• Be proactive about ensuring financial health today to support expanded care tomorrow. 

• Refine processes continuously to support billing teams and hold systems accountable for delivering consistent, clean claims. 

Compliance doesn’t often inspire excitement; it’s typically associated with red tape and barriers. But I see compliance differently—as an opportunity for innovation. The findings in our research suggest that the behavioral health community must move from viewing compliance as an afterthought to seeing it as an integrated, empowering part of daily operations. 

Imagine compliance being woven into every aspect of care through technology to ensure all documentation is efficient and adheres seamlessly to regulations. AI has the potential to take compliance from a burdensome requirement to an enabler of high-quality care. When documentation is both streamlined and compliant, it closes the loop, allowing us to maintain standards while reducing manual efforts. Compliance should be viewed as a foundation that supports you in pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in behavioral health care. 

Our research also showed that, while not as pressing a concern as regulatory challenges or economic conditions, technology adoption is one of the biggest concerns for leaders and poses a challenge to delivering care effectively. And in our interactions with clinical staff, we’ve heard time and again that effective user interfaces and a clean user experience are critical for effective adoption. When technology is cumbersome or unintuitive, it becomes an obstacle rather than an asset.  

Behavioral health professionals need tools that are easy to navigate and designed with their workflows in mind, ensuring that they can spend more time focused on patient care rather than figuring out how to use the system. Addressing these issues is foundational to ensuring that the focus remains on the patient, enabling deeper connections and more effective care.  

These adoption challenges aren’t coming from the tools themselves, but rather from a lack of sufficient training and support. This gap has left teams feeling overwhelmed rather than empowered. Tools that are supposed to help often fall short—not because they’re inherently flawed but because people aren’t given the support they need to use them effectively. Behavioral health providers deserve more than just software; they deserve the training, resources, and ongoing support that make these solutions truly impactful. 

To break down the barriers of technology adoption, consider the following actions: 

• Commit to providing comprehensive onboarding for all new technologies. 

• Offer practical training sessions that address real-world usage. 

• Provide ongoing support tailored to the needs of every team member. 

It’s time for us, as a community, to set a new standard where technology feels like a genuine asset that makes our work more fulfilling and effective. 

The insights from our research are a reminder that while progress is being made, we still have work to do—and we must do it together. The opportunities are immense: AI that reduces burnout, revenue cycle management that secures financial health, compliance that drives quality, and technology adoption that amplifies our impact. But none of this happens in isolation. It requires collaboration, a shared vision, and a commitment to supporting one another. 

The future of behavioral health is in our hands. We are so close to realizing a future where technology serves the people providing care, where financial and operational health are treated as fundamental components of patient care, and where compliance doesn’t hinder innovation but instead paves the way for it. Let’s take these findings as a call to action to elevate our work, support our teams, and ultimately provide the best care possible to those who need it most. Together, we can lead behavioral health into a new era—one that embraces innovation, nurtures our caregivers, and changes lives for the better. 

About the Authors

Carina Edwards CEO of Kipu Health, the technology partner for mental health and addiction service providers. Carina is an experienced healthcare technology executive with a proven track record of innovative and dynamic leadership in establishing, growing, and operating private and public companies. Prior to Kipu, she served as the CEO of Quil, a pioneering joint venture between Comcast NBCUniversal and Independence Blue Cross. Prior to Quil, Edwards was an executive at Imprivata, where she played a key role in the company's growth and built an award-winning customer experience organization.