Behind Bars, Mentally Ill Inmates Are Often Punished For Their Symptoms  

By some accounts, nearly half of America's incarcerated population is mentally ill - and journalist Alisa Roth argues that most aren't getting the treatment they need.

Roth has visited jails in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta and a rural women's prison in Oklahoma to assess the condition of mentally ill prisoners. She says correctional officers are on the "front lines" of mental health treatment - despite the fact that they lack clinical training.

"Most of [the correctional officers] will talk about how this is not what they signed up for," Roth says. "Most of them have not had much training in dealing with mental illness - or they've had none at all."

Roth chronicles her findings in the book, 

Insane: America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness. 

Click HERE to read the article or listen to NPR's Fresh Air podcast.

Researchers at Boston Medical Center have found that warm handoffs are not associated with improved attendance at behavioral health intake appointments.

It has been theorized that warm handoffs could build patients' trust in behavioral health

clinicians and reduce patients' stigma about behavioral health care, potentially translating to improved attendance at behavioral health appointments. 

Instead, researchers found that the most significant predictor of attendance at an initial intake was time from referral until appointment, consistent with other studies in specialty mental health and other clinical settings. Read more here.

I am pleased to report that this past weekend, Care Coordination Organizations (CCOs) began providing care management services for over 100,000 people. Over 97% of the people already receiving care coordination chose the more comprehensive Health Home Care Management service, signaling overwhelming support for more flexibility, more innovation and more customization in the planning of their services.

With Health Home Care Management, people will now be able to plan their disability, health and wellness services all in one place. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of former Medicaid Service Coordinators, many of whom are now Care Managers in the new system, nearly everyone selected their new CCO and type of care management service by the July 1 deadline.

By separating the management of care from the provision of services, the launch of CCOs is probably the most exciting advancement we have made in our system to date. Read more here.

Effective July 1, 2018, Medicaid fee-for-service (FFS) and Medicaid Managed Care (MMC) plans will begin covering harm reduction services (HRS). This change applies to mainstream MMC, HIV Special Needs Plans (HIV SNP) and Health and Recovery Plans (HARP). HRS will be delivered by New York State Department of Health (NYS DOH) authorized and waivered syringe exchange programs (SEP) that are enrolled as Medicaid providers. Read more here.

A recent issue of Psychiatric Times featured an opinion piece by D.J. Jaffe who argued that there is little empirical support for the effectiveness of paid peer-support staff-persons in recovery from mental illnees who are trained to provide support to others-on the outcomes of "homelessness, arrest, incarceration, violence, and needless hospitalization."1 In this article, we rebut Mr Jaffe's argument by revisiting the rationale and evidence base for peer support.

While we agree that the government needs to fund more research on this important topic, we argue that stating that peer support "lacks evidence" is simply not accurate. In fact, as we will explain below, over 30 studies have found positive effects in numerous outcome domains. But first it is important to understand the nature and intended impact of this form of service delivery. Read more here.