The American Psychological Association (APA) is asking states and insurers to temporarily remove roadblocks that make it harder for mental health providers to offer telehealth services. Doing so is especially important in light of COVID-19, the APA says. “This is an extraordinary public health crisis with vast and unpredictable implications for the nation’s mental health,” […]
Category: Medicaid
The Trump administration continues to loosen health care regulations in an attempt to better equip providers to deal with COVID-19. For the behavioral health industry, the newfound flexibilities make it much easier for providers to deliver comprehensive telehealth services. Due to the crisis, the government is looking past certain HIPAA rules, allowing providers to deliver […]
More than 80 Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) advocates convened on Capitol Hill Wednesday to urge Congress to extend and expand the CCBHC Medicaid demonstration program. Specifically, they’re asking lawmakers to support the Excellence in Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Expansion Act (S. 824/H.R. 1767), which would expand the pilot by two years and […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a new final rule that will help behavioral health providers coordinate care by requiring hospitals to notify them when their patients have been admitted. The Interoperability and Patient Access rule applies to acute care, psychiatric and critical access hospitals that participate in Medicare and Medicaid. […]
Hopebridge Autism Therapy Centers, which is already one of the country’s largest autism treatment providers, is expanding its footprint even more in 2020. Indianapolis-based Hopebridge is a completely center-based provider of applied behavior analysis (ABA), diagnostics, occupational therapy and speech therapy. It serves children as young as 18 months and as old as 12 but […]
The expansion of Medicaid has allowed thousands to receive treatment for substance use disorder (SUD), a new study shows. States that chose to expand Medicaid following the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have seen significantly more low-income adults seek treatment for SUD than states that did not. In fact, in four years, expansion […]
Expanding medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder (OUD) and combating the resurgence of meth are currently top priorities for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at HHS. Giroir shared those goals and others during a Tuesday presentation at the 2020 CMS Quality […]
Most behavioral health providers agree it’s a good thing: The federal government continues to funnel more money into behavioral health initiatives, such as fighting the opioid epidemic and funding certified community behavioral health clinics (CCBHC). But as providers find themselves with more federal dollars, they’re also more likely to face increased scrutiny over their practices, […]
Dozens of behavioral health organizations are urging Congress to expand the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) Medicaid demonstration, which is set to expire May 22. In a letter released Tuesday, 60 stakeholders asked lawmakers to extend the demonstration for the eight states currently participating and expand the program to nearly a dozen more states. […]
The Trump administration released its proposed budget for fiscal year 2021 Monday. On the behavioral health front, the budget aims to expand and extend the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) Medicaid demonstration, significantly boosting funding to that program and a variety of others focused on mental health and the opioid epidemic. It also promises […]