Mary Ann Lindeblad

Ms. Lindeblad is the director of the Division of Healthcare Services for the Washington Health and Recovery Services Administration, Department of Social and Health Services.  She serves on the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services’ Medicaid Managed Care Technical Advisory Group and is a member of the National Academy for State Health Policy.  Her division operates the Healthy Options program, the Washington Medicaid Integration Pilot, other care management, coordination and integrated care pilots, administrative match, utilization review, transportation and interpreter services, and oversees family planning programs, maternity, and other children and family health services.  Her previous positions include assistant administrator of the state’s Public Employees Benefits Board, director of operations for Unified Physicians of Washington, and office chief for Managed Care and Family Services during the 1990s.

Ms. Lindeblad holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Eastern Washington University’s Intercollegiate Nursing Program and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Washington.

Practicum Summary

Goal: Develop a strategic implementation plan to more fully integrate behavioral and physical health services as the first step toward a system-wide, person-centered health home.

MaryAnne Lindeblad is developing a long-term strategy to fully integrate behavioral and physical health services. Through this strategic planning process, she is seeking to: (1) create partnerships with stakeholder groups, the legislature, and county government; (2) identify community options to serve special populations; (3) build a quality strategy that identifies outcome measures and data needs for performance monitoring purposes; and (4) assure an organizational structure to support an integrated system of care.  Building on more than five years of legislative and other commissioned reports evaluating the current behavioral health system, Ms. Lindeblad has launched an extensive stakeholder engagement process to move toward integration. The state is planning a staged implementation for its integrated model that will begin in 2011.