Lori comes to the project after working with NYSDOH directing Program and Operations for the NYS Patient Center Medical Home Model Initiative. During her time at DOH, she was responsible for program design, policy, and led transformation operations as part of the state's 4-year, $67 million primary care transformation initiative under CMS's State Innovation Model (SIM) grant. In this role, she focused on model design and management oversight of 15 practice transformation organizations contracted to serve nearly 2,000 primary care practices. She utilized strategic planning to assist these practice sites to optimize transformation and revenue under multiple lines of business, including Medicare, Medicaid and various commercial plans, focusing heavily on Primary Care Practice/Behavioral Health Integration.

Lori has years of experience working with a diverse set of stakeholders, who often have different objectives, to come together to achieve common goals.  She looks forward to working with the RPC Team to continue the successful implementation of RPCs across the state.  Welcome, Lori! 

To learn more about the RPCs, visit  www.clmhd.org/RPC .

Coordinating Care Of Mind And Body Might Help Medicaid Save Money And Lives

Modern medicine often views the mind and body on separate tracks, both in terms of treatment and health insurance reimbursement. But patients with psychological disorders can have a hard time managing their physical health.

So some Medicaid programs, which provide health coverage for people with low incomes, have tried to 

coordinate patients' physical and mental health care.

The goal is to save state and federal governments money while improving the health of patients like John Poynter of Clarksville, Tenn.

Poynter has more health problems than he can recall. "Memory is one of them," he said, with a laugh that punctuates the end of nearly every sentence.

He is recovering from his second hip replacement, related to his dwarfism. Poynter gets around with the help of a walker, which is covered in keychains from places he has been. He also has diabetes and struggles to manage his blood sugar.

But most of his challenges, he said, revolve around one thing: alcoholism. Read more here.

HHS Changes Privacy Restrictions Around Addiction Treatment

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced nearly $107 million in Quality Improvement Awards to 1,273 health centers across nearly all U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia. Funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), health centers will use these awards to improve the quality, efficiency, and value of the health care they provide.

By providing patients access to high quality, value-based care, health centers are uniquely positioned to meet the nation's most pressing health care needs, as well as emerging health priorities. HRSA-funded health centers are the first line of care in combatting the nation's opioid crisis. In 2018, health centers screened nearly 1.1 million people for substance use disorder and ultimately provided medication-assisted treatment to nearly 95,000 patients nationwide. Read more here.

On Tuesday, SAMHSA released the latest data findings from the 2018 NSDUH. NSDUH provides estimates of the use of illegal substances, prescription drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, as well as mental disorders, treatment, and co-occurring substance use and mental disorders in the United States. NSDUH data also help to identify the extent of substance use and mental illness among different sub-groups; estimate trends over time; and determine the need for treatment services.

Hospital-Based Psychiatric Emergency Programs: The Missing Link for Mental Health Systems

Boarding of psychiatric patients in medical emergency departments (EDs) for hours or even days is a serious issue plaguing hospitals across the country. Typically, the emergency physician has determined that the patient needs further psychiatric care. However, the sole option available is usually admission to an inpatient psychiatric facility.

Unfortunately, few regions have enough inpatient psychiatric beds to meet the needs of a system predicated on admitting the majority of ED patients, especially since, in the past decade, behavioral health patients have risen to become one in every eight cases in EDs in the US.1 As a result, psychiatric patients can end up confined indefinitely in small ED quarters with a sitter or security guard, or restrained to a gurney in a back hallway, while they await admission. Many of these boarded patients receive little or no psychiatric treatment beyond sedation. Thus, sadly, the most highly acute patients in a mental health system are often ironically the most underserved .

Fortunately, we now have an evidence-based solution that can fill this glaring gap in the psychiatric care continuum: hospital-based psychiatric EDs. These compassionate, trauma-informed, and cost-effective programs have the potential to not only dramatically improve treatment options, but also save behavioral health systems millions of dollars annually by stabilizing patients in the emergency setting, and thus avoiding costly inpatient admissions. Read more here.

The effects of trauma have been in the headlines too much over the past few weeks. Most recently, trauma from mass shootings to trauma from neighborhood gun violence.  Likewise, the trauma from sexual assault and the trauma of childhood separation and mass incarceration are also in the headlines far too frequently.

Most professionals in the health and human service field are aware of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study and the long-term and lasting effects of trauma. The effects include mental health conditions (depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder), chronic physical health conditions (heart disease, stroke, cancer, COPD, diabetes, HIV, or sexually transmitted diseases), risky health behaviors (alcohol and drug abuse, unsafe sexual behaviors), and injury, among others.