North Carolina Funds Practice Supports to Expand Collaborative Care Model
In a NASHP blog post, the organization describes North Carolina's multi-year strategy to expand adoption of the Collaborative Care Model (CoCM), a behavioral health integration approach for primary care. Starting in 2022, the state raised Medicaid reimbursement for CoCM to 120 percent of the 2022 Medicare fee schedule, eliminated beneficiary copays, aligned billing across payers, and launched a statewide CoCM Consortium. In 2025, North Carolina added roughly $5 million in federal Medicaid expansion incentive funding to a Capacity Building Fund, awarding 81 grants of up to $50,000 across 113 primary care sites. Between CY2023 and the end of CY2025, monthly CoCM beneficiaries and billing providers grew 3.5-fold, reaching about 2,000 beneficiaries and 200 providers, with early data showing meaningful remission and symptom improvement rates.