Coderre & LaBelle Named as Acting Heads of SAMHSA and ONDCP
Tom Coderre, former Region 1 administrator at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), has been named SAMHSA’s acting assistant secretary for mental health and substance use, and
Regina LaBelle, former chief of staff at the White House Office of National Drug Policy (ONDCP), has been named ONDCP’s acting director in the new Biden administration.
Coderre served in the Rhode Island Senate from 1995 until 2003 and later as senior advisor to Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimando. In his previous role as chief of staff at SAMHSA, he led the team that produced
Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health. Coderre is the first person in recovery to lead SAMHSA, and his bio notes that he acknowledges the essential role of peer recovery support services to help people with mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) rebuild their lives.
LaBelle is a distinguished scholar and program director of the addiction and public policy initiative at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University and is on a leave of absence from that position. LaBelle worked as the chief of staff and senior policy advisor at ONDCP during the Obama administration and oversaw the agency’s efforts to address the nation’s opioid crisis.
White House Issues Regulatory Freeze Pending Review
The White House on Thursday notified the leaders of federal executive departments and agencies that the Biden administration is freezing the federal regulatory process pending review.
A
memorandum from Ron Klain, assistant to the president and chief of staff, outlined the steps that department and agency leaders are expected to take immediately. It begins with the instruction that—subject to exceptions from the Office of Management and Budget in emergency situations—they propose or issue no rule in any manner, including sending a rule to the Office of the Federal Register, until a department or agency head appointed or designated by President Biden reviews and approves the rule.
The memo also includes details about rules that have been published in the
Federal Register, and those that have been issued in any manner but have not yet taken effect.
Joint Commission Proposes New Standards for Preventing Workplace Violence
The Joint Commission (TJC) on Wednesday proposed new, revised standards for workplace violence prevention.
The standards provide a framework for developing strong workplace violence prevention systems, defining workplace violence, and developing a leadership structure, policies, and procedures, reporting systems, post-incident strategies, training, and education to decrease workplace violence.
TJC will accept comments on the proposed new standards until Tuesday, Feb. 16. Click
here to read the standards and to submit comments.
CMS Releases T-MSIS-based Medicaid SUD Data Book
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this week released its second publication of the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS)-based
Medicaid Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Data Book to help policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders better understand where to focus drug prevention and treatment efforts.
The data book includes 2018 data on Medicaid beneficiaries treated for SUD and the services they received by type, setting, delivery system, and progression of care. According to the data book’s findings, of the 55.9 Medicaid beneficiaries ages 12 and older with full or comprehensive benefits, 4.6 million, or 8%, were treated for a SUD in 2018.
Meanwhile, nearly half of beneficiaries, or 46%, treated for SUD received emergency services, and 26% received at least one service in an outpatient or home- or community-based setting within 30 days of discharge.
NABH Welcomes New Committee Chairs
NABH is pleased to announce new leaders for some of the association’s standing committees and thanks its outgoing leaders for their service.
Tom Kenny of Sequel Youth & Family Services succeeds Pat Connell of Boys Town Behavioral Health Division as the new chairman of NABH’s Youth Services Committee, and Joe Pritchard of Pinnacle Treatment Centers succeeds Jeff Hillis of AdCare Hospital as the new chairman of the association’s Addiction Treatment Commitment. NABH is also pleased to welcome Kim Sanderson of Acadia Healthcare as the chairwoman for the SUD Medication Treatment Subcommittee.
NABH Releases Issue Brief on Changes to Medicare Coverage for SUD
NABH this week sent members an NABH Issue Brief to provide more details about recent changes to Medicare coverage for SUD that were included in the 2021 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) rule.
The
Issue Brief includes information about how the rule expanded the PFS bundled payments to include all SUDs, as well as details about nasal naloxone.
Center for Connected Health Policy to Host Telehealth Policy Webinar on Feb. 5
The Center for Connected Health Policy will host
Telehealth & Medicaid: What’s Next? A Roadmap for Telehealth Beyond the Pandemic on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021 at 2 p.m. ET.
The webinar will feature experts in a panel discussion about what the future looks like for telehealth policy in Medicaid. Attendees will hear from high-level administrators and policy staff from the Medicaid and CHIP Payment Advisory Commission (MACPAC), the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, and the Oregon Health Authority.
Click
here to learn more and to register.
Save the Date: NABH 2021 Annual Meeting
NABH will host its 2021 Annual Meeting from Wednesday, Oct. 6 – Friday, Oct. 8, 2021 at the Mandarin Oriental Washington, DC.
The association re-scheduled for this later date in 2021 due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. We hope you can join us!
After 2021, NABH will host its subsequent Annual Meetings in June. Please save the date for these future NABH Annual Meetings:
We look forward to seeing you again in Washington!
Fact of the Week
Compared with 2019, the proportion of mental health-related
visits for children aged 5 to 11 years old and 12 to 17 years old increased about 24% and 31%, respectively.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond