I am writing fiction.
There is a group called the Mental Health Access and Referral Team. In prose, I can either use M-HART or MHART. In dialogue, I'm a bit stumped. (I use The Chicago Manual of Style.)
I think the best way to express would be M-Hart, but The Chicago Manual of Style suggests that naming single letters should be in italics. This would put the letter "M" in italics. However, acronyms are their own category. For instance, one would not place FBI in italics for Federal Bureau of Investigations in prose or dialogue.
The other issue is that if I use M-Hart in dialogue, can I use MHART in prose (removing the hyphen)? It's more phenomenologically correct, but it creates an inconsistency (sort of).