President Biden’s FY 2024 Budget Proposal Includes Strong Focus on Behavioral Healthcare Needs
Yesterday, President Biden issued his Fiscal Year 2024 budget proposal, which now goes to Congress for consideration. Key provisions include:
Elimination of the 190-day Lifetime Limit on Psychiatric Hospital Services. The proposed budget would rescind the current law limiting Medicare enrollees to a lifetime limit of 190-days inpatient psychiatric care. The purpose of this provision is to increase access to hospital-level care and advance parity between mental health and physical health coverage for patients with serious mental illness. The budget estimates that this item would generate a $2.4 billion cost to Medicare over 10 years.
Greater Psychiatric Hospital Flexibility when Restoring Compliance with Conditions of Participation. In cases where a psychiatric hospital is non-compliant with the Medicare conditions of participation for a deficiency that does
not jeopardize patient health and well-being, the proposed budget would give CMS flexibility to continue issuing Medicare payments if the facility is actively working to correct the deficiency, rather than terminate Medicare participation.
Workforce. The proposed budget also includes a $2 billion mandatory Mental Health System Transformation Fund for workforce development and service expansion. In part, this workforce development effort would augment FY 2023 funding already enacted in law to train about 18,000 behavioral health providers— including clinicians, peer support specialists, and others—and increase the number of providers practicing in areas of high demand throughout the country.
Parity. The proposed budget would apply to Medicare Advantage the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, requiring health plans to offer mental health and substance use disorder benefits that are no more restrictive than the medical and surgical benefits they offer. It also requires health plans to use medical necessity criteria for behavioral health developed by nonprofit medical specialty associations, as well as regulation of behavioral health network adequacy, and the creation of a standard for parity in reimbursement. The budget estimates a $760 million cost over 10 years for these parity items.
Learn more about the Biden administration’s FY 2024 budget proposal
here.
Study Shows Opioids Cause Half of All Poisonings in U.S. Kids Aged 5 and Under
About 52% of poisoning deaths of U.S. children aged 5 and under in 2018 involved the ingestion of an opioid, according to a study published online this week in the journal
Pediatrics.
Researchers also found that opioids accounted for a progressively greater proportion of the substances contributing to poisoning-related deaths during the study period, from 24% in 2005 to 52% in 2018.
“As the types of opioids circulating during the current epidemic continue to evolve, policy and programmatic initiatives should focus on children in addition to adults,” the study’s authors wrote. “Regulatory changes have improved the safety of OTC medications, but a substantial proportion of pediatric fatalities are still associated with this medication class.”
Thank You to Members Who Submitted Comments on Workforce Challenges & Solutions
NABH thanks all members who responded to our request for feedback about their system’s most critical workforce challenges and potential solutions.
The NABH Research and Education Foundation is seeking comments in these two areas to help NABH respond to a request for information (RFI) that the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee
announced last week. The RFI follows a Feb. 16 hearing the Senate HELP Committee held to examine the root causes of America’s current healthcare workforce shortages and explore potential solutions.
If you haven’t sent comments and would like to contribute, please send your feedback as an attachment to
foundation@nabh.org by the close of business on Monday, March 13.
Registration is Open for the 2023 NABH Annual Meeting: Securing the Promise of Parity!
Please join us in Washington, DC from
June 12-14, 2023 for this year’s NABH Annual Meeting at the Salamander Washington, DC (formerly the Mandarin Oriental hotel).
NABH’s theme this year is
Securing the Promise of Parity, which recognizes the
Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act’s (MPAEA) 15
th anniversary and that we have more work to do to ensure the landmark law is implemented fully.
Please visit our Annual Meeting
homepage to register, reserve your hotel room, and view our Annual Meeting At-a-Glance.
We look forward to seeing you in Washington!
Manatt Telehealth Webinar Recording Now Available
NABH thanks its members who helped the NABH Education and Research Foundation and Manatt produce a joint issue brief,
Telehealth is Effectively Augmenting Traditional Partial Hospitalization and Intensive Outpatient Programs last month
.
In case you missed it, Manatt led a webinar on March 1 that highlighted the telehealth issue brief’s findings. Click
here to submit a brief form to watch the recorded webinar.
NABH is grateful to Abhi Pardeshi from UHS, Dylan Ross from Rogers Behavioral Health, and T.J. Vlavianos from Northwell Health’s Zucker Hillside Hospital for joining NABH President and CEO Shawn Coughlin as the webinar’s panelists.
Reminder: Please Submit Data to Enhance NABH’s Managed-Care Advocacy Efforts
Thank you to all members who have submitted data to NABH’s denial-of-care portal. Your data will help NABH highlight problems in the field related to health plan denials and timeliness.
Several policymaking entities are interested in these data, which could support advocacy for expanded access to care. For new participants, please e-mail
Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, for support.
Fact of the Week
Males make up 25% of people with
anorexia. Because they are often diagnosed later than females, they are at higher risk of dying, according to the Center for Discovery.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.
