Joel Hornberger, Chief Strategy Officer, Cherokee Health Systems

Today’s guest is Joel Hornberger, the chief strategy officer National Training Director at Cherokee Health Systems, headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee. I had the good fortune to hear Joel speak last fall at an event sponsored by the New Hampshire-Vermont Chapter of HFMA and invited him to be on the podcast, and I’m really pleased that he did. Cherokee Health Systems is a combined Federally Qualified Health Center and Community Mental Health Center, which is kind of unique. But when you hear center, don’t be fooled – Cherokee provides care for more than 70,000 patients through it’s 23 brick and mortar locations and 23 additional telemedicine sites. Cherokee has been an innovator in the area of integrating behavioral health and primary care, which is the focus of my conversation with Joel today. In the interview we talk about how Cherokee uses embedded behavioral health counselors to collaborate with primary care providers as well as the Clinic developed a unique rating system called the BPSA to quantify the needs of individual patients, among other things. I really enjoyed talking with Joel because his passion for integrated care and the FQHC mission is so apparent. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. for more information, please go to our web site, https://healthleaderforge.blogspot.com/2019/01/joel-hornberger-chief-strategy-officer.html This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healthleaderforge.substack.com