Aligning training, regulation, and payment policy to advance the behavioral health workforce

The United States is facing an unprecedented behavioral health crisis, exacerbated by workforce shortages that limit access to treatment. In response, states are attempting to increase access to behavioral health services by developing new professions and roles and expanding the functions of the existing behavioral health workforce. Yet, training, regulation, and payment policies are often not aligned to effectively deploy the workforce to serve in new or expanded roles to meet behavioral health needs. We envision training, regulation, and payment as a three-legged stool that supports the health care workforce. In this commentary, we discuss why each leg of the stool is essential, offer examples of how misalignment occurs in the behavioral health workforce, and provide an example of how states can align these three factors to meet community behavioral health needs.