A community needs assessment identifies and describes a target community’s resources, health needs and service gaps. In behavioral care, it provides key information conducive to ensuring equitable access to high-quality mental health and substance use disorder services—but the assessment process can pose significant challenges due to lack of clarity about methodology, resource-intensiveness and required time. NCQA staff will discuss assessment benefits and challenges, and present new tools developed to help behavioral care practices simplify the community needs assessment process.