The Many Benefits of Inpatient Behavioral Health Treatment

Your day-to-day behavior has a major impact on your emotional and mental health. Certain behaviors tend to support your well-being.

On the other hand, there are behaviors that tend to weaken your well-being. People affected by serious mental illness have often developed harmful patterns of behavior.

To regain a sense of wellness, they need help turning these patterns around.

In some cases, outpatient mental health treatment may be enough to promote your recovery. However, for people heavily affected by their illnesses, this approach is often not enough.

Instead, they need the fuller spectrum of care provided by inpatient mental health treatment. This treatment comes with a range of benefits for recovery from behavioral health issues.

Defining Behavioral Health

Behavioral health is closely related to mental health. The term highlights how your actions affect your emotional and mental state. It also highlights how those actions affect your physical health.

Mental illness can change your normal behavior in damaging ways. It can also change your normal emotional reactions and thought patterns. 

Once damaging behaviors, thoughts and emotions take hold, they can create a kind of feedback loop. They do so by reinforcing the effects of your illness.

The result may be a continuation of your existing symptoms. You may also experience worsening symptoms over time.

What Is Inpatient Behavioral Health Treatment?

What Is Inpatient Behavioral Health Treatment

The effects of mental illness on your behavioral health can range from mild to severe. If your health is only mildly affected, an outpatient mental health program is your most likely treatment option.

In some cases, people with moderate problems can also recover with outpatient care. 

But if you have moderate to severe symptoms, inpatient treatment may be your best bet. Inpatient behavioral health programs require you to live onsite 24/7 while you recover.

This approach provides more time for treatment than outpatient care, which is a live-at-home treatment model. You may need this extra time to support an effective recovery.

Inpatient treatment also differs from outpatient treatment in other important ways. 

Features of Inpatient Behavioral Health Programs

Inpatient mental health programs do things that outpatient programs do not. Examples of these things include:

  • Providing you with extensive treatment and assistance each day
  • Giving you rapid access to any needed medical resources
  • Establishing a safe, round-the-clock environment
  • Safeguarding your health in emergency situations

There are two main types of inpatient programs for adult behavioral health treatment. The first type is residential care that does not take place in a hospital. The second is an inpatient psychiatric hospital. 

Residential Behavioral Health Programs

Roughly half of all inpatient programs are residential. These programs are for people who meet a couple of core criteria. First, to enroll in a residential program, you must be free of issues that call for hospitalization.

Examples of these kinds of issues include:

  • Suicidal behavior
  • Violent behavior toward others
  • Any other form of uncontrolled, dangerous behavior

In addition, people in inpatient programs cannot get their needs met in outpatient care. Some participants have never spent time in an outpatient program. Others have had unsuccessful results in outpatient treatment.

Inpatient Psychiatric Behavioral Health Programs

Inpatient Psychiatric Behavioral Health Programs

The remaining half of inpatient behavioral health programs are hospital-based. Programs in this category are designed for people who need immediate medical oversight while in treatment.

Behavior that endangers you or others is the main reason for requiring this kind of oversight. You may also need inpatient psychiatric care for acute behavioral health episodes.

During these episodes, your symptoms grow worse and lead to unpredictable or volatile behavior. 

What Happens in Inpatient Behavioral Health Facilities?

Two main forms of recovery support are offered in inpatient programs: treatment and secondary services.

Treatment

Treatment is the heart of inpatient behavioral healthcare. Two modes of treatment, medication and therapy, are widely used in both residential and psychiatric facilities. The specific options you receive depend on:

  • Your behavioral health diagnosis
  • The severity of your illness symptoms
  • The physical and psychological details of your personal background

All behavioral health medications work by making changes in your normal brain function. These changes have a beneficial impact on your thoughts and emotions. In turn, you experience a beneficial impact on your behavior. Available medications include:

  • Mood stabilizers
  • Anti-anxiety meds
  • Antipsychotics 
  • Antidepressants

There are a wide variety of individual medications in each of these broad categories. The vast majority of people get the help they need from at least one of these many options.

However, not everyone benefits from the same medication. In addition, not everyone receives a benefit in the same amount of time. This means that you and your doctor must work together to find suitable choices.

The therapy used to treat mental illness is often behavioral. This means that it helps you develop patterns of behavior that support your well-being.

The most common form of this treatment is cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT. CBT supports your recovery from most types of major mental illness. 

Dialectical behavior therapy is another option. You may receive this form of treatment if you suffer from borderline personality disorder.

It is also useful for people with mental illness who have additional substance problems. Other possible therapy options include:

  • Interpersonal therapy
  • Psychodynamic psychotherapy
  • EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy

Services

Services

Inpatient facilities near you may offer a variety of secondary services. These services work to support your behavioral treatment. Case management is the most widely available service.

This is the term for the coordinated effort to guide your overall treatment. Other common services include:

  • Education on the mental and behavioral impact of your symptoms 
  • Counseling on dietary and exercise habits
  • Suicide prevention services

Cost of Inpatient Behavioral Health Treatment

How much is inpatient mental health care? There is no blanket answer to this question. Programs vary widely in cost. Some options on your list of programs may be more or less expensive than others. 

Why would mental health facilities near you charge different prices? Again, there is no single answer that applies in all cases. Some facilities may offer different treatment options than others.

In addition, facilities may vary in terms of their setting and available amenities. The length of time you spend in your program also has a major impact on your costs. 

One fact holds true in the vast majority of cases. Inpatient treatment is more expensive than outpatient treatment. However, when it comes to the benefits you receive, that difference may not be important to you. 

Insurance for Inpatient Behavioral Health Treatment

Will insurance help cut the cost of receiving inpatient behavioral health treatment? In many cases, yes. Today, mental health clauses are common in both private and government-supported insurance programs.

These clauses mandate coverage for at least some of the expense of treatment. 

This does not mean that all insurance policies cover inpatient care. It also does not mean that a plan that offers coverage will take care of all your expenses.

Check with your provider to see if or how mental health coverage is included in your plan. 

Can you still get help if you do not have insurance? Again, the answer to this question is often yes.

The program you are considering may offer a payment agreement. This kind of arrangement helps you spread out the cost of enrollment. 

Emerald Isle: A Top Choice for Inpatient Behavioral Health

Behavioral health programs target the link between your mental health and your behavior. This focus is vital. Poor mental health can lead to harmful changes in your behavior.

In turn, that altered behavior may contribute to a worsening state of mental health. By getting the help you need, you break this vicious cycle. You also promote a decrease in the impact of existing mental illness. 

Effective inpatient behavioral health near you may be crucial to your recovery. Depending on your needs, the right program may be residential or hospital-based.

In fact, you may spend time in both types of programs during your recovery. Both residential facilities and hospitals rely primarily on medication and therapy for mental illness treatment.

Your specific plan may include one or both of these options. 

Costs vary between various programs and facilities. Your insurance plan may help reduce your expenses, or even eliminate them.

However, not all policies provide the same level of coverage. If you do not have insurance, a payment plan may be available.

Emerald Isle is a top choice for inpatient behavioral treatment in the Phoenix metroplex. Every day, people from throughout the region rely on us for effective, high-quality residential care.

If you are not sure if you need residential treatment, we offer a free health assessment.

This assessment will help clarify your situation. In addition, we offer a more detailed psychiatric evaluation. This evaluation will allow us to determine if your are a fit for inpatient treatment.

All care plans at Emerald Isle are customized. From the ground up, they address the unique factors affecting your behavioral health.

This personalized, holistic approach will help you recover from any form of mental illness. For more information on our inpatient behavioral health program, contact us today.