There are fewer than seven persons per square mile in the Nebraska panhandle. That officially classifies the region as a “frontier area.” It also makes it a mental health shortage area, reports Nebraska Public Radio. There just aren’t enough behavioral health providers in the region. Almost a third of Nebraska’s counties have zero mental health providers. That means residents with attention deficit disorder or anxiety or depression are simply out of luck—unless they want to travel long distances.
But traveling for treatment costs money, and it means many patients miss work. One group, Western Nebraska Behavioral Health, is trying something different. Each week they visit dozens of people at medical clinics across a 60-mile radius. The mental health group treats people in the same place where they see their doctor, utilizing unused exam rooms. The system is called “integrated care.”