Angela Argyropoulos, MD

Angela Argyropoulos, MD, obtained her medical degree at the University of Michigan Medical School, and did her residency at the University of Washington. During her residency training, was first drawn to integrated care during a rotation in which she worked in a mental health clinic co-located within a primary care clinic. She particularly enjoyed collaborating with the clinical team, including the primary care physicians and psychologists, as well as teaching within this role. She later chose to do a BHIP rotation and has enjoyed reaching a broad range of individuals in need of mental health care through the collaborative care model.

Dr. Argyropoulos also particularly enjoys psychotherapy and feels that working as a psychiatric consultant is an excellent complement to psychotherapy work, as this role provides a way to serve a larger number of patients in the greater community while continuing to work in a team.

Dr. Argyropoulos believes that increasing access to psychiatric care and taking a team-based, interdisciplinary approach in supporting our primary care colleagues in providing mental health treatment are particularly meaningful aspects of her work. She is hopeful that collaborative care will continue to grow throughout the country and improve availability of mental health services to those most in need.

Caitlin Rippey, MD, PhD

Caitlin Rippey, MD, PhD, completed her medical degree as well as PhD on the genetic basis of schizophrenia at the University of Washington. She then went on to psychiatry residency training there as well and will be a fellow in the integrated care training program.

From growing up in West Africa, to caring for underserved populations in clinical training, to doing anti-racism community organizing, she has been aware of how structural and systemic factors influence health and access to quality, culturally competent care.

The integrated care training program offers a way to combine her interests in systems of care, social justice, clinical care and research, within a team-based approach geared towards expanding access to mental health care.

She is committed to expanding mental health services in rural western Washington state, and sees integrated care that is responsive to individual communities’ needs as the ideal way to do this.

Amber Kostial, MD

Amber Kostial, MD, has been running a private adult general psychiatry practice in Bellingham since 2016. She opened her practice after working for a year at the local hospital due to observing the need for increased outpatient psychiatric care in the community. She owns her own practice, but shares office space and participates in an office association with two other psychiatrists and 6 psychotherapists, which allows for a community feeling and ample opportunity for consultation and collaboration.

Dr. Kostial’s interest in collaborative care was sparked by her experience participating in integrated care as a psychiatric consultant for PeaceHealth primary care clinics in Bellingham and via telemedicine with Peace Island Medical Center on San Juan Island. She enjoyed being able to collaborate with primary care providers and behavioral health care managers to help optimize mental healthcare for individuals in a timely and efficient way and to help identify individuals in need of more intensive care with a psychiatric prescriber and/or psychotherapist.

Dr. Kostial gained a basic understanding of integrated care systems through her experience and readings at the time, but through participating in the Integrated Care Fellowship she hopes to gain a breadth and depth of knowledge that will allow her to offer psychiatric consultation services to her community in an optimally informed, effective, and evidence-based way. There is a major shortage of psychiatric prescribers in Whatcom County, with no outpatient psychiatric services offered through the hospital, only a couple community mental health agencies serving individuals with Medicaid, and a handful of private practice psychiatrists/ psychiatric prescribers, with only a couple who take Medicare.

By participating in the Integrated Care Fellowship, Dr. Kostial hopes to help expand the reach of behavioral health care to individuals, including those who may never see a psychiatrist or therapist, in her local community. She hopes to share her experience with other local psychiatrists/psychiatric prescribers to get them interested in participating in integrated care also.

Dr. Kostial hopes that integrated care will be a usual component of primary care within the next 5 years. She also wonders if there might be value in the longer term to extending to some nonprimary care settings (e.g. neurology, dermatology, pain clinics, surgery clinics) to reach patients with frequent specialist contacts and complex comorbidities that may be significantly impacted by/have significant impacts on behavioral health.

Daniel Ferber, MD

Daniel Ferber, MD, does clinical work that includes psychiatric assessment and medication management to patients across the age spectrum. An interdisciplinary approach to patient care is integral to his role as a medical provider working in community mental health.

Dr. Ferber’s interest in participating in the collaborative care fellowship evolved from his role as Medical Director of a Community Mental Health Center currently in the process of implementing a Coordinated Care Behavioral Health Center (CCBHC) grant. He hopes that the knowledge gained from his participation in the fellowship will allow him to be a more effective participant in clinical planning at the agencies where he practices.

Dr. Ferber believesthe relationships developed from his participation in the fellowship will continue to be an invaluable resource as the application of integrated care evolves and impacts his clinical practice.

Over the next five years , Dr. Ferber envisions coordinated care/integrated care as contributing greatly to improved health outcomes for our patients. Hopefully, the coordination between physical and mental health providers will not be implemented in such a way that it is perceived as an additional burden on our medical providers.