HHS Advisory Committee Puts Collaborative Care First and Charts a Federal Roadmap

Committee names four fixes to speed adoption; two can be made by administrative action alone

WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 31, 2026): Fewer than 10 percent of eligible primary care practices use Collaborative Care, eight years after Medicare created its billing codes. Today the HHS Healthcare Advisory Committee, which advises the HHS Secretary and the CMS Administrator, opened its second public meeting with the model.

The Committee, chaired by Dr. Clive Fields, affirmed Collaborative Care’s clinical value and cost-effectiveness. It then named four fixes to speed adoption:

• Medicaid coverage
• Simpler billing
• Start-up funding for practices
• A pipeline of behavioral health care managers

The Committee noted that the first two can be solved through administrative action alone.

Path Forward partners the American Psychiatric Association and Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute led the coalition’s engagement. The meeting follows July’s HHS Behavioral Health Quality Pledge and the proposed 2027 fee schedule. It offers something more than a pledge: a federal roadmap for Collaborative Care, with the first steps already in CMS’s hands.

Meeting agenda: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/formal-hac-meeting-agenda-2.pdf