Integrated Behavioral Health from Coast to Coast

If you don’t know what INTEGRATED BEHAVIORAL HEALTH is, you have not met Dr. Bill McFeature.  Dr. Bill McFeature has  made promoting and educating about this emerging type of behavioral health his mission from coast to coast.  Born in Dublin, GA, Bill left the east coast initially to go to East Tennessee State University on a baseball scholarship. Baseball was fun but when it fizzled as a career, Bill needed to find a “real job.”  He began as a part-time alcohol counselor, completed his Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a Master’s in Counseling from ETSU, moved to California, and ultimately completed a PhD in Clinical Psychology. 

Although Dr. McFeature began as a traditional mental health therapist, in 1997 he entered the emerging area of primary care integration with behavioral health.  After a recruiting phone call in 2004, Dr. McFeature was offered the opportunity to move to Virginia to further develop and implement this new concept.  This continental leap was made possible with a federal grant opportunity as a way to see a patient in a “one-stop shop” environment and simultaneously improve both the overall primary care and the access to behavioral health.

Today in the integrated behavioral health setting there is typically brief therapy and practical health consultations that follow best practice, research-based methodology. This is the vision, mission and daily work that Dr. McFeature advocates as the Director of Integrative Behavioral Health Care Services for Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems, Inc.  He coordinates all aspects of behavioral health including program development and oversight, grant writing as well as direct patient care.

In coordination with a primary care provider, Dr. McFeature sees 12-14 patients per day.  In this context, his are not the traditional 50 minutes pre-scheduled appointments. For his integrated behavioral health sessions, Dr. McFeature sees 85% of patients for 30 minutes in his office and 15% of patients are seen for 15 minutes in the exam room. His patients from Bristol, a border city between southwestern Virginia and Tennessee, are predominately older.

Personally, Dr. McFeature loves the rural areas and feels he has a satisfying work/life balance. Family is very important to Dr. McFeature and his wife.  Together in 2009 they wrote and published the book Heart Path Practitioner (http://heartpathpractitioner.com/).  In addition, Dr. McFeature appreciates the NHSC (http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/ ) loan repayment opportunityand is now in his third year of what he calls “a wonderful program.”  But the greatest part about living in a rural area is the close knit community that has expansive views.

Dr. McFeature sums up his journey to spread Integrative Behavioral Health from coast to coast simply saying he appreciates the opportunity to positively “touch lives”. That seems to say it all.