Advancing Public Policies for People with Mental Illness, Chemical Dependency or Developmental Disabilities
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SAMHSA Announces Availability of $196 Million for Opioid Treatment Grants to Hardest-Hit States and Tribes
SAMHSA is accepting applications for $196 million to treat opioid use disorder through its
Targeted Capacity Expansion: Medication Assisted Treatment-Prescription Drug and Opioid Addiction grant program. This funding will expand access to medication-assisted treatment and recovery support services for people with opioid use disorder. This grant program aims to increase the number of people receiving medication-assisted treatment for their opioid use disorder, leading to a decrease in heroin use and prescription opioid misuse. By funding treatment in states with the greatest need for additional treatment resources, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and SAMHSA aim to reduce the number of deaths related to opioid use. Read more
here.
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MCTAC Announces In-Peron Training: Aligned Children's HCBS - Part I
Target Audience: Providers, serving individuals under 21, who are designated to provide or plan to provide Aligned HCBS.
These five day-long in-person trainings will review the updated Children's System implementation timeline and Aligned
HCBS.
Each service description will include service overview, qualifications, and referral process with a focus on next steps and implementation strategies.
More details, including agenda and registration links, can be found here.
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Optimize Workflow by Addressing the Successes and Challenges of Integrating Electronic Health Records
June 4, 1 - 2:30 pm, SAMHSA-HRSA
Peer Specialists and Police as Partners Preventing Behavioral Health Crises
June 5, 11:30 am - 1 pm, SAMHSA
The Interplay Between Sleep & Bipolar Disorder
June 5, 12 - 1 pm, PsychU
Mental Health Apps on your Smartphone: Do they work?
June 5, 12 - 1 pm, SAMHSA
June 6, 12 - 1 pm, SAMHSA
Partnership Opportunities for Payers, Providers and States: Supportive Housing for High Utilizers
June 7, 1 - 2 pm, Health Management Associates
Using PSYCKES Recipient Search
June 7, 2 - 3 pm, OMH
Reducing the Number of People with Mental Illnesses Booked into Jails
June 7, 2 - 3:15 pm, Stepping Up
June 12, 12 - 1 pm, SAMHSA
June 12, 3 - 4 pm, Manatt Health
Interpersonal Approaches to Treating Depression in Adolescents and Adults
June 13, 12 - 1 pm, CTAC
How Community Supervision Agencies Can Develop and Implement Collaborative Comprehensive Case Plans
June 13, 2 - 3 pm, National Reentry Resource Center
Effectively Employing and Supervising Youth Peer Advocates
June 14, 1 - 2 pm, CTAC
June 18, 12 - 1 pm, PsychU
Motivational Interviewing: Clinical Updates within Substance Abuse Treatment
June 19, 12 - 1 pm, CTAC
June 19, 3 - 4 pm, National Council for Behavioral Health
Using PSYCKES for Clinicians
June 21, 3 - 4:30 pm, OMH
June 26, 11 am - 12 pm, OMH
June 27, 1 - 2 pm, Manatt Health
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CALENDAR OF EVENTS
JUNE 2018
Officers, Chairs & Regional Reps Call
June 6: 8 am
Mental Hygiene Planning Committee Meeting
June 18: 1 - 3 pm, GTM
Children & Families Committee Meeting
June 19: 11:30 am - 1 pm, GTM
Directors/Executive Committee Meeting
June 20: 9:30 am - 12:30 pm, GTM
JULY 2018
Office Closed: Independence Day
July 4
Officers, Chairs & Regional Reps Call
July 11: 8 am
Developmental Disabilities Committee Meeting
July 12: 1 - 2:30 pm, GTM
Children & Families Committee Meeting
July 17: 11:30 am - 1 pm, GTM
Contact CLMHD for all Call In and Go To Meeting information, 518.462.9422
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The Largest Health Disparity We Don't Talk About
Americans with serious mental illnesses
die 15 to 30 years younger than those without.
I didn't think our relationship would last, but neither did I think it would end so soon.
My patient had struggled with bipolar disorder his entire life, and his illness dominated our years together. He had, in a fit of hopelessness, tried to take his life with a fistful of pills. He had, in an episode of mania, driven his car into a tree. But the reason I now held his death certificate - his sister and mother in tears by his bed - was more pedestrian: a ruptured plaque in his coronary artery. A heart attack.
Americans with depression, bipolar disorder or other serious mental illnesses die 15 to 30 years younger than those without mental illness - a disparity larger than for race, ethnicity, geography or socioeconomic status. It's a gap, unlike many others, that has been growing, but it receives considerably less academic study or public attention. The extraordinary life expectancy gains of the past half-century have left these patients behind, with the result that Americans with serious mental illness live shorter lives than those in many of the world's poorest countries.
National conversations about better mental health care tend to follow a mass shooting or the suicide of a celebrity. These discussions obscure a more rampant killer of millions of Americans with mental illness: chronic disease. Read more here. |
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NBC News: Mobile Treatment Unit an Innovative Approach to Combat Opioid Epidemic
Mona Lisa McEachin operates a mobile unit in Buffalo, New York, to offer medical services and counseling in an effort to help those struggling with addiction get on the road to recovery. Watch video HERE.
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CCBHCs Are Transforming Opioid Addiction Treatment Access
Despite the surging opioid crisis, only one in ten Americans with an addiction disorder receives treatment in any given year. Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) were enacted in 201
4 to fill the gaps in unmet need for addiction and mental health care and expand access to comprehensive, community-based treatment.
Early results
from the two-year program demonstrate how CCBHCs are dramatically improving access to opioid and other addiction care.
Due to the passage of the Excellence in Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Act, sixty-six CCBHCs launched in eight states (MN, MO, NJ, NY, OK, OR, PA) starting in 2017. In April 2018, the National Council for Behavioral Health surveyed CCBHCs about how the model has impacted their addiction service array, quality, delivery and workforce. Survey highlights can be found
here.
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Kaiser Permanente Investing $200 Million to Address Housing Instability, Improve Health
Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest integrated health system, recently announced an impact investing commitment of up to $200 million through its Thriving Communities Fund to address housing stability and homelessness, among other community needs. The organization's initial focus will be on preventing displacement or homelessness of lower- and middle-income households in rapidly changing communities; reducing homelessness by ensuring access to supportive housing; and making affordable homes healthier and more environmentally sound.
Impact investing is a form of investment used to deliver a measurable social benefit. Kaiser Permanente's impact-investing pledge will deliver national and local social and environmental returns with an initial focus on housing, a significant community health challenge. Read more
here.
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Missing the Whole Story: Behavioral Health Slow to Adopt New Pay Models
A few weeks ago, Dr. Kevin Bozic saw a 68-year-old patient who appeared to exemplify the "perfect bundle" under Medicare's test payment program for knee replacements. She was only in the hospital for one night. She wasn't readmitted and didn't report complications within 90 days.
But in their follow-up visit, she was miserable. That perplexed Bozic, an orthopedic surgeon and chair of the surgery and perioperative care department at the University of Texas at Austin's Dell Medical School. The surgery, performed by a different surgeon, was 18 months ago. The patient's X-rays looked fine, her range of motion was good and there wasn't any swelling or redness around her knee.
Then Bozic checked out her preoperative X-ray, which showed very little arthritis to begin with.
"I suspect this was a patient who had significant anxiety that was manifesting itself as knee pain and perseverating on that, became fixated on that knee pain as the source of her problem and saw a well-meaning surgeon who said, 'I know how to fix that. I'll do surgery,' " he said.
Bozic's practice now screens all patients for behavioral health conditions like anxiety and depression that could be contributing to their pain prior to surgeries, a protocol that wasn't in place when the 68-year-old patient had her knee replaced. Read more
here.
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New York´s 1115 Waiver Programs Public Comment Day Announced
The upstate public comment day will be held on
June 19, 2018 at the Empire State Plaza, Meeting Room 6, Albany, NY. The day will begin with a working session of the DSRIP Project Approval and Oversight Panel (PAOP) followed by public comment. Any written public comment or questions may be submitted
through June 29, 2018 to
1115waivers@health.ny.gov
. Please include "1115 Public Forum Comment" in the subject line.
The 1115 waiver is designed to permit New York to use a managed care delivery system to deliver benefits to Medicaid recipients, create efficiencies in the Medicaid program, and enable the extension of coverage to certain individuals who would otherwise be without health insurance. In addition, New York's goals in implanting its 1115 waiver include improving access to health services and better health outcomes for New Yorkers through multiple programs.
More information on the 1115 waiver and its programs is available
here. The Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) Program is a significant waiver initiative, and members of the DSRIP PAOP will join DOH staff in listening to the feedback provided by members of the public and stakeholders. Feedback on all waiver programs is welcomed.
This meeting will be
webcast live and will be open to the public. Registration will begin at 10:30 am, and no pre-registration is required. Individuals who wish to provide comment will be asked to register on site no later than 2:00 pm, and will speak in their order of registration.
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Department of Health Launches NYS Health Connector
New Yorkers will have access to a wealth of health care data with the launch of the NYS Health Connector website.
The site, launched Wednesday, allows users to learn more about the cost of procedures such as knee and hip replacements and heart surgeries. Along with helping consumers, the site is also a clearinghouse for data related to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's Suicide Prevention Task Force, launched last year.
The data will also be used to examine the number of unnecessary hospital visits New Yorkers make each year.
A news release on the Health Department's website said that tracking rates of these types of visits "can help identify the conditions and regions where additional resources could improve patient outcomes, increase access to primary and preventive care and reduce costs." Other topics Health Connector users can research include the cost of deliveries and the cost of general hospital admissions. Read more
here.
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Why Personal Narratives Matter for Young Adults with Mental Health Challenges
If you've ever suffered a chronic illness, or loved someone who has, you probably wondered what caused it. And the way you thought about the origins of the problem-based on past experiences and choices made-probably differed from the way your physician approached it, with laser focus on the presenting symptoms.
But researchers have now demonstrated the value of eliciting the patient's perception of a physical condition, also known as the "illness narrative," as a valuable tool for improving health management. Over the past decade, Michelle Munson, associate professor at the NYU Silver School of Social Work, has been examining the narratives of young adults with mental health challenges.
Munson's empirical studies focus on marginalized young adults defined by the Institute of Medicine as navigating added challenges in their transition to adulthood, including poverty, reliance on safety-net systems of care, disabilities, and young parenthood. As the data suggest, how young adults make sense of their symptoms, how they feel about them, and their perceptions of help sources all strongly influence their engagement (or lack thereof) with treatment, and how well they will continue to take care of themselves. For now, Munson and Narendorf, along with their colleagues, have proposed
that there can be a transformation in mental health if we can train providers to closely consider these narratives. Read more here.
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