State mental health policy: mending Missouri's safety net: transforming systems of care by integrating primary and behavioral health care.

Missouri has begun a three-year pilot program across the state to integrate the primary care services provided by federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and the behavioral health services provided by community mental health centers (CMHCs). This column describes the integration initiative, in which start-up funds were provided in 2008 to seven FQHC-CMHC partnerships (a total of $700,000 to each pair over 3.5 years). It reviews lessons learned during the first year of the project in bringing these two very different public systems of care together to mend the public health safety net.