Joining the network of partners is designed to be a very low lift. It comprises completing a brief enrollment form (in which you will attest to meeting the Art Pharmacy Standard of Care and a few partner agreements) and attending a 1-hr orientation held weekly.

We provide lots of resources and capacity-building opportunities for partners, including quarterly webinars with rotating topics and a resource hub with introductory materials and downloadable ‘best practice’ reference sheets.

Art Pharmacy members receive recommendations from a Care Navigator (Art Pharmacy employee, similar to a Community Health Worker) for arts engagements that match their health goals, arts interests and access needs. They get 3-5 options that they choose from, so that the engagement they end up attending really speaks to them and works for their schedule.

Specific engagements at our partner organizations are promoted via direct recommendation to members. The personalized nature of our recommendations mean that there is not one calendar with all of the possible engagements on it.

Art Pharmacy covers participation costs. When a member selects an arts engagement (class, performance, museum visit etc), the Care Navigator books the ticket/registers for the class on their behalf. We typically follow the same pathways for registration as a member of the public (i.e. through the booking page on your website!). In some cases a workaround is required given any particularities in an Arts Partner's systems. We typically cover participation costs at time of booking so that Arts & Culture Partners do not have to submit an invoice to Art Pharmacy. Arts & Culture Partners never have to deal with billing to health care providers.

We are not yet actively marketing to the public a la "Ask your doctor if you qualify" because the vast majority of our current partners are identifying the cohort they are opening this service up to at the start, rather than it being a blanket benefit. If someone is eligible they will have been notified, and we don't want to create false hope/expectations for others.

** This is a tough balance because obviously spreading the word about it and showing demand is one way to get more partnerships and contracts to expand that coverage.

The beauty of Social Prescribing is that we tap into the benefits of community engagement to support individuals in a different way than a clinical intervention might. Both our prescribing partners and members know that this is a community-based intervention, and therefore eligibility to participate is set to include individuals who are not in active/acute crisis or with violent behavior. And the hard truth is that with rates of mental health concerns in the US hovering around 20% of the population, you are probably serving folks with some of the same conditions already.