A program that uses technology to help primary care doctors connect patients with behavioral health services is being expanded into Butler County by health insurer Highmark, the company has announced.

The program, a partnership with the digital health company Quartet, was launched last year in Pittsburgh and subsequently expanded to surrounding counties.

Highmark said the program — which gives doctors access to a smart phone app and Web portal to send basic referral information to mental health professionals — saw “thousands of physicians, behavioral health specialists, and patients,” participate in its first seven months.

Now, said Dr. Duke Ruktanonchai, Highmark’s medical director for psychiatry, the company is expanding the program into Butler and Westmoreland counties.

He said the program was a response to years of research showing a strong correlation between chronic physical illnesses and mental health issues such as anxiety or depression.

A 2008 study published in the American Journal of Managed Care found that nearly 70 percent of adults with mental health conditions also have a medical condition.

But the challenges of getting people from their doctor’s office to a mental health professional can be significant, Ruktanonchai said. The main issue is communication between physicians and mental health professionals.

“Unfortunately I think the (divisions) have been created unintentionally,” he said. “It’s really a lack of communication on both sides.”

Highmark’s hope is that Quartet will prompt more primary care physicians to screen medical patients for possible mental health issues, and promote more communication between primary care physicians and mental health providers.

The company says more than 200 primary care doctors and behavioral health specialists in the county could benefit from using the program.

“Basically the model is, the primary care doctor is the quarterback,” Ruktanonchai said. “This service is really to equip the (physicians) to help their patients with mental health needs and get them where they need to be in an expedited manner.”

Dr. David Wennberg, Quartet’s chief science officer, said the technology not only helps primary care physicians screen patients, it helps match patients with the right behavioral health providers for them — something he called essential to making mental health treatments more accessible to patients.

“There’s a general need to improve the access to behavioral health care,” Wennberg said. “And that’s less related to the number of providers and more about the lack of information.”

In addition to tools for primary care physicians, Quartet also has its own team of clinicians that can do basic evaluations over the phone and offer various services, like telepsychiatry.

“This is a new technology and a really new service, and Highmark is one of the first organizations to go live with this,” Ruktanonchai said. “It’s not yet proven that it’s going to be effective. But we know that it’s better than the current state of affairs.”