HHS Needs Your Feedback to Help Develop a Behavioral Healthcare Data Set
Through March 29, HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) – the federal agency that standardizes information technology requirements for healthcare providers – is collecting information about specific data elements to include in a new behavioral healthcare data set. NABH encourages you to help with this important project.
The task is a joint
effort between ONC and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to create the draft
United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) + BH to address core data and interoperability for behavioral health needs beyond the scope of the USCDI. In December 2023, ONC launched a new
USCDI+ platform to support the organization, linking of domains, and functionality to solicit and receive feedback for all USCDI+ domains.
HHS’ goal with this activity is to confirm the data points needed to improve and advance care continuity for patients who see behavioral healthcare providers and other healthcare providers. Survey respondents will identify the specific data metrics from among 187 options – such as the patient’s address, insurance information, clinical data points, and more – that HHS should collect, as well as items that HHS should not collect.
Your expertise will help develop an eventual government-endorsed data set for the behavioral healthcare field and also influence a separate HHS effort to develop a future behavioral health information technology system.
Behavioral Health Information Technology, or BHIT, is one of NABH’s top advocacy priorities, so we strongly urge you and your teams’ health IT experts to complete ONC’s survey by no later than Friday, March 29.
Meanwhile, NABH is working with its committees to prepare an association comment letter to ONC. Please contact
Rochelle Archuleta with any questions.
Register Today for the NABH Education and Research Foundation’s Talent-Recruitment Webinars
The
NABH Education and Research Foundation will host a two-part webinar series about talent recruitment featuring NABH members and workforce experts in March and April.
Part I –
Talent Recruitment: Exploring Short-Term Solutions – on
Tuesday, March 26 will feature Foundation Vice President Jim Shaheen, CEO of New Season/Colonial Management Group, LP; Foundation Secretary Mary Pawlikowski, president at Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics; and workforce consultant Beth Kuhn of
Stonegate Strategies.
In this hourlong webinar, presenters will lead participants in an interactive discussion to share and discuss their talent-recruitment and retention challenges, as well as their best, short-term strategies to address those problems. These practices include re-organizing recruitment teams to align with operations, developing alumni outreach initiatives, streamlining an organization’s onboarding process, conducting stay interviews, and more.
Please join us and click here to register for Part I on March 26 at 2 p.m. ET!
The second webinar in this series will examine longer-term solutions to recruiting talent – such as Registered Apprenticeship Programs, education and certification opportunities, fellowships, and more – on
Thursday, April 18 at 2 p.m. ET.
NABH Board Chair Frank Ghinassi, Ph.D., A.B.P.P. president and CEO, Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care and senior vice president, Behavioral Health and Addictions Service Line, RWJBarnabas Health, will lead the April webinar along with Kuhn and workforce consultant
John Pallasch of One Workforce Solutions. Pallasch served previously as the assistant secretary for employment and training at the U.S. Labor Department.
Please join us and click here to register for Part II on April 18!
President Biden’s Fiscal 2025 Budget Proposal Aims to Transform Behavioral Healthcare
President Biden this week unveiled his fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget
proposal, which would provide considerable funding to achieve the Biden administration’s goal of transforming behavioral healthcare in America.
Each year, the president’s budget proposal is most significant for sending a message about the administration’s priorities. President Biden’s FY 2025 proposal provides $1 billion to advance BHIT adoption and interoperability among providers. It also provides a combined total of $216 million for mental health programs, including $200 million from the
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a 900% increase in program funding since 2021. The funds will help to increase the number of school-based counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals in K-12 schools.
NABH is also pleased to see the president’s budget proposal seeks to strengthen parity by requiring all commercial market health plans to cover mental health and substance use disorder benefits; ensuring that plans have an adequate network of behavioral health providers; and improving the U.S. Labor Department’s (DOL) ability to enforce the law. The budget includes $275 million over 10 years to increase the DOL’s capacity to ensure that large group market health plans and issuers comply with mental health and substance use disorder requirements, and to act against plans and issuers that do not comply.
The budget’s other behavioral healthcare provisions include: investing in strengthening the behavioral healthcare workforce, including integration into primary care settings; increasing funding for the Children’s Mental Health Initiative by $50 million; increasing funding for the State Opioid Response grant program, investing in a new technical assistance center to strengthen health providers’ understanding and treatment of substance use and women’s mental health; expanding the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and more.
SAMHSA to Host Webinar Next Week on Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness
SAMHSA will host a virtual webinar for prospective applicants interested in applying for the fiscal year 2024 Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness (AOT).
The webinar will provide an overview of SAMHSA’s late-February AOT funding
opportunity and application requirements.
Registration is not required for the
webinar on Wednesday, March 20 from 2:30 – 4 p.m. ET.
Register Today for the 2024 NABH Annual Meeting
Please remember to
register for the 2024 NABH Annual Meeting,
The Future of Behavioral Healthcare and
reserve your hotel room at the Salamander Washington, DC from
May 13-15, 2024.
This year’s meeting will examine and discuss critical issues that behavioral healthcare providers manage today and will continue to address tomorrow, including access to care, parity, technology, workforce, the political environment, and more.
We look forward to seeing you in Washington!
Join Us for Hill Day 2024
Please remember to sign up for Hill Day 2024 on
Tuesday, May 14, the second day of this year’s Annual Meeting. Hill Day is an excellent opportunity to meet one-on-one with legislators to discuss the issues that matter most to behavioral healthcare providers.
After you
register for the NABH Annual Meeting, the NABH Congressional Affairs team will match you with legislators who represent you or your facility footprint. Closer to the day of the meeting, we will send you a meeting schedule, materials, and talking points to guide your conversations with Members of Congress and their staff.
Please indicate in your Annual Meeting registration form that you are interested in Hill Day, and be sure to include all the states where your system has a footprint. If you have an existing relationship with a legislator, please let us know!
Reminder: Please Submit Data to NABH’ Denial-of-Care Portal
NABH thanks all members who have submitted data to the association’s
Denial-of-Care Portal. You have provided critical information that expands the portal and helps NABH strengthen its advocacy efforts related to erroneous prior-authorization denials.
With guidance from our members, NABH has improved the portal by adding two elements:
- Time-based data on the number of days between a request for coverage and a plan’s denial, which improves our ability to assess and compare health plan responsiveness.
- The gap between days of provided care versus days of covered care to quantify and compare uncompensated days per health plan.
We strongly encourage all NABH members to submit their denial-of-care data in the portal. If you need help starting, or if you have other questions, please e-mail NABH Associate Manager for Congressional Affairs
Emily Wilkins.
In Case You Missed It: NABH’s 2024 Advocacy Priorities
NABH released its
2024 Advocacy Priorities, which we urge you to read and share with your Government Relations teams.
Topping NABH’s priorities this year are parity, workforce, behavioral healthcare information technology, America’s ongoing addiction crisis, and the Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMD) exclusion.
Fact of the Week
In 2021 and 2022, people ages 75 and older had the highest suicide rate among all age groups, largely driven by males, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and noted in a recent
Health Affairs article.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.