Provider Consultation

Telehealth Consultation

Our provider-to-provider consultation lines help eligible providers who are seeking clinical advice regarding patients with mental health and/or substance use disorders. All of the consultation lines provide on-demand service and are free for the caller.

Our Psychiatry Consultation Line (PCL) helps prescribing providers who are seeking clinical advice regarding adult patients (18+) with mental health and/or substance use disorders. Visit our PCL website to learn more.

How does PCL work?
Providers call 877-WA-PSYCH (877-927-7924) and after a short intake with a UW health navigator, are connected to a UW psychiatrist. At the conclusion of the conversation, the caller will receive a brief written documentation of the recommendations via encrypted email.

Who is eligible to call? Any prescribing health care provider in Washington state. Patients, family and caregivers are NOT eligible to call.

Why would I call? You have questions about:

  • assessment
  • diagnosis
  • treatment planning, including medication management or other treatments​​

When are PCL psychiatrists available?
The consultation line (877-927-7924) is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The Perinatal Psychiatry Consultation Line (PPCL), previously name PAL for Moms) is a perinatal psychiatry consultation line available to any provider in Washington State wanting consultation, recommendations, and referrals to community resources from a UW psychiatrist with expertise in perinatal mental health.

Faculty members consult on any mental health-related questions for patients who are pregnant, in the first year postpartum, or who have pregnancy-related complications (e.g. pregnancy loss, infertility). Topics may include depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric disorders; adjustment to pregnancy loss, complications, or difficult life events; risks of psychiatric medications; non-medication treatments; and consulting about women on psychotropic medications who are wanting to or thinking about getting pregnant.

The Partnership Access Line (PAL) at Seattle Children’s Hospital is a child psychiatry consultation program operating in Washington, Wyoming, and Alaska specifically designed to support primary care providers in providing adequate mental health care. Providers may call about any type of mental health issue that arises about any child, either before seeing a patient prepare for a visit or after the appointment. The consultations center on mental health care such as diagnostic clarification, medication adjustment, or treatment planning.

PAL takes each call as a ‘teachable moment,’ instructing the provider around caring for a particular child while building capacity to administer similar care in the future. In specific cases, the PAL program also offers a one-time in-person or telemedicine appointment for patients with Medicaid. Additionally, the PAL program has a masters-level social worker available to help find mental health resources for the primary care provider’s patient.

The UW Medicine and Seattle Children’s Hospital Child and Adolescent psychiatrists at PAL provide additional services: medication reviews for Alaska, Washington and Wyoming and psychiatriatic evaluations via telemedicine serve Wyoming’s Department of Family Services youth.

ECHO Programs

Using proven adult learning techniques and interactive video technology, the ECHO Model™ connects groups of community providers with specialists at centers of excellence in regular real-time collaborative sessions. The sessions, designed around case-based learning and mentorship, help local workers gain the expertise required to provide needed services. Providers gain skills and confidence; specialists learn new approaches for applying their knowledge across diverse cultural and geographical contexts. As the capacity of the local workforce increases, lives improve. Our varied ECHO programs provide clinical consultation support and develops the mental health workforce in Washington and the WWAMI region.

This CME-accredited program is designed to expand the mental health and addictions care capacity of healthcare professionals, especially in remote, underserved areas of Washington. The series is appropriate for primary care providers including MDs, ARNPs, PAs and mental health providers willing to engage in a proven model of distance learning.

The goal of UW PACC is to develop a regional peer learning and support network for treating mental health and addictions that will ultimately result in better patient care. Learn more

Moms’ Access Project ECHO (MAP ECHO): Perinatal Psychiatry Case Conference Series is a CME-accredited program for providers in Washington State who want to improve the mental health of their pregnant and postpartum patients.

Facilitated by a multidisciplinary team including UW Medicine perinatal psychiatrists, obstetrician gynecologists, maternal fetal medicine experts, advanced registered nurse practitioners, therapists and social workers, the program aims to increase frontline provider capacity to address common mental disorders in pregnancy and postpartum. Program format is brief didactic followed by in depth case presentation and discussion. Learn more

The cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) ECHO clinics connect experts in the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences to community mental health providers from rural and underserved areas to enhance capacity to deliver CBT for psychosis (CBTp), an evidence-based psychotherapeutic treatment for schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

  • In Washington, two weekly CBT ECHO clinics enable providers to build proficiency in individual and group-based CBTp.
  • Sessions are open to providers who have participated in preliminary in-person training.
  • The clinics advance efforts to enhance access to care for individuals with serious mental illness and create self-sustaining communities of practice among CBTp providers.

This is the first ECHO program in the world focused exclusively on schizophrenia spectrum disorders and the first ECHO program to assist providers in developing competencies in group or individual evidence-based psychotherapeutic interventions. Contact the implementation team cbtecho@uw.edu. Learn more

This program connects experts in the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences to community mental health providers working on PACT teams throughout the state of Washington. PACT is an evidence-based practice for individuals experiencing serious mental illness in which a multi-disciplinary team provides psychiatric, psychotherapeutic, nursing, and other rehabilitative and behavioral health services to individuals living with serious mental illness directly in the community.

This is among the first ECHO program in the world focused exclusively on schizophrenia spectrum disorders and the first ECHO program to focus particularly on PACT or ACT. Learn more

The First Episode Psychosis (FEP) ECHO clinic connects experts in the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences with clinicians across the Washington State New Journeys early intervention network to enhance delivery of coordinated specialty care for youth and young adults experiencing a first episode of psychosis.

The UW FEP ECHO clinic is one of three ECHO clinics in the nation focused exclusively on first episode psychosis. Learn more

The Trauma Recovery ECHO is a tele-mentoring model of didactic teaching combined with in-depth case consultation. Multidisciplinary experts in the field of mental health care following trauma exposure meet with mental health and social work providers across WA state to explore topics such assessment and conceptualization of trauma related problems, best practices for therapy strategies and medications for trauma related problems, and skills for understanding culturally relevant factors. Continuing education credits are provided for clinicians who attend. Learn more

TBI ECHO trains community providers from a variety of disciplines and settings who treat persons with TBI. The program will cover the identification of TBI and evidence-based behavioral health treatments and will provide detailed case consultation. The team will assess the success, reach and impact of the TBI ECHO by collecting and comparing attendee experiences, clinical information and patient outcomes. The project is being initially funded by the Garvey Institute for Brain Health Solutions and is being led by Jennifer Erickson, DO. Learn more

ECHO Autism Washington is a recurring telehealth training designed to disseminate evidence-based practices in diagnosis and management of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to primary care providers identified through the existing Health Care Authority Centers of Excellence system. ECHO Autism Washington is a partnership between UW LEND and the Washington State Legislature. Learning takes place through case presentations and didactics from an interdisciplinary panel of experts with the goal of increasing access to medical services for people across Washington State impacted by ASD. Contact echoautismwa@uw.edu for more information.