Behavioral health services:
Finding care for patients

The Level of Care Assessment Tool, or LOCAT, is a resource for behavioral health doctors, hospitals and other providers.

LOCAT determines levels and types of behavioral health care for your patients needing:

• Evaluation and treatment
• Placement in facilities or units

How it's used

LOCAT helps evaluate a patient's symptoms by:

• Identifying and scoring seven areas -- or dimensions -- that affect behavioral health
• Narrowing the dimensions into subsets, for a more detailed picture

7 dimensions 

The tool helps a doctor evaluate symptoms in seven areas:

1. Dangerous symptoms
        Assesses warning signs of:
   • Suicidal intent
   • Self-injury intent
   • Homicidal intent
   • Irritability/aggression
     
2. Functional impairment
        Determines how severely functioning is impaired, evaluating:
   • Social isolation 
   • Nutritional impairment
   • Sleep disturbance
   • School or work impairment
     
3. Mental status/cognitive factor
        Looks at a patient's internal and external states, including: 
   • Appearance 
   • Speech 
   • Affect
   • Delusions
   • Hallucinations
   • Thought content
   • Behavioral/neurovegetative
   • Orientation
     
4. Substance use/abuse/dependence
        Considers substance abuse as a factor, evaluating: 
   • Scope of use/abuse
   • Patterns of use/abuse 
   • Withdrawal potential
     
5. Medical illness
        Looks at whether medical illnesses are contributing to behavioral health symptoms
   
6. Environmental stress
         Examines outside influences that can affect a patient:  
   • Family stress 
   • Non-family member stress 
   • Housing 
   • School or job 
7. Support system
        Measures support available to a patient from: 
   • Family
   • Friends
   • Social agencies

Please note: 

• The LOCAT does not replace medical judgment, where a doctor believes that a different level of care or course of treatment is necessary.
• Treating doctors are solely responsible for medical advice and member treatment.