Medicare Boosts Pay Up To 175% for Doctors Integrating Mental Health Services Starting in 2027

The aptly named Connecting Our Medical Providers with Links to Expand Tailored and Effective Care Act—or COMPLETE Care Act—is essentially a massive financial incentive program designed to embed mental health services right into your regular primary care doctor’s office. Think of it as one-stop shopping for your physical and mental well-being, especially if you’re on Medicare.

The Check is In the Mail: Big Bonuses for Integrated Care

Starting in 2027, this bill changes how Medicare pays primary care providers (PCPs) who offer specific behavioral health services. If your doctor uses certain billing codes for integrated care—like the Collaborative Care Model, which involves a team approach to mental health—Medicare won’t just pay the normal rate. They’ll pay a bonus.

This bonus starts high: 175% of the normal rate in 2027. It then tapers down to 150% in 2028 and settles at 125% in 2029. This is a significant bump designed to make it financially worthwhile for PCPs to invest the time and resources needed to set up these complex integrated systems. Crucially, the bill ensures these extra payments won’t trigger cuts elsewhere in the Medicare system, as they are explicitly excluded from budget neutrality rules. This protects other Medicare services from having to compensate for the new expense.

Why This Matters to You

For Medicare beneficiaries, this is a big deal for access. Right now, finding a therapist or psychiatrist can mean long wait times, navigating different insurance networks, and dealing with the stigma of a separate appointment. Under the COMPLETE Care Act, you could potentially receive mental health support—like screening, brief intervention, or ongoing care management—from your trusted PCP or a behavioral health specialist working right out of their office. It’s about making mental healthcare as routine and accessible as checking your blood pressure.

Consider a retired construction worker dealing with chronic pain and related depression. Instead of waiting months for a separate specialist appointment, their primary care doctor’s office could manage their pain medication and coordinate their depression treatment simultaneously, all under one roof. This integration is the core goal of the bill.

Help is on the Way for Doctors

It’s one thing to offer doctors more money; it’s another to help them actually build the infrastructure to deliver integrated care. Recognizing this, the bill mandates that the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) set up technical assistance programs. These programs are designed to teach primary care offices exactly how to implement models like the Collaborative Care Model. The law requires contracts for this assistance to be in place by January 1, 2026, ensuring help is ready before the payment bonuses kick in.

To speed things up, HHS can use “program instructions” rather than the lengthy formal rulemaking process to get this technical help off the ground. While this ensures quick implementation—which is great for getting services to people faster—it does mean the process bypasses some of the typical public review and comment periods. Funding for this technical assistance will be drawn directly from the Treasury for fiscal years 2025 through 2029, meaning taxpayers are footing the bill for the setup, but there is no specific cap on how much can be spent during that period.

The Takeaway

This legislation is a clear, targeted effort to solve a major healthcare bottleneck: the separation of physical and mental health. By using significant, temporary financial incentives, the COMPLETE Care Act aims to rapidly shift how primary care is delivered to Medicare patients starting in 2027. If successful, it means better, faster, and more convenient access to mental health services for millions of older Americans, making comprehensive care the new normal.