House Reconciliation Package Includes Strong Support for Behavioral Healthcare
U.S. House committees this week began marking up the Covid-19 reconciliation package that largely reflects the Biden administration’s priorities and includes strong support for behavioral healthcare and a number of NABH priorities.
House members expect quick passage on a party-line basis for the legislation, which includes significant funding for state and local governments. NABH will apprise members of the final bill’s provisions when they are available. As of this week, the reconciliation package:
- Includes Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) block grants funded at $3.5 billion, split equally between the Block Grants for Community Mental Health Services and the Block Grants for Prevention and Treatment of Substance Abuse. Taken in conjunction with the $4.25 billion in funding that SAMHSA received in December as part of the stimulus package, this represents the largest onetime federal investment in behavioral health in our nation’s history.
- Addresses the so-called Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy (MIEP) by allowing for medical assistance under Medicaid for inmates during the 30-day period preceding their release. This provision would expire after five years.
- Provides enhanced Medicaid support for bundled mobile crisis intervention. States would be permitted to provide bundled payments for mobile crisis services at an 85% FMAP rate. This provision would expire after five years.
- Provides for mandatory coverage of Covid-19 vaccines, administration, and treatment under Medicaid.
- Allows states to extend Medicaid eligibility to women for 12 months postpartum for five years.
- Provides $100 million for Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training (BHWET) grants through the Public Health Service.
- Provides $80 million for behavioral healthcare training for health care professionals, paraprofessionals, and public safety officers in the form of grants through the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).
- Provides $30 million for community-based substance use disorder programs for harm-reduction services and the prevention and control of the spread of infectious diseases through SAMHSA.
- Provides $20 million for youth suicide prevention activities.
After the House passes this latest Covid-19 relief package, the Senate is expected to consider it after the upper chamber completes former President Trump’s impeachment trial.
Foley & Lardner Survey Examines Telehealth Commercial Insurance Laws Across States
Forty-three states and Washington, D.C. maintain some sort of telehealth commercial payer statute, although the quality and efficacy of these laws varies considerably from state to state, a new telehealth survey from law firm Foley & Lardner shows.
The 190-page
report notes that the legal landscape has “significantly improved” since the firm’s 2019 report, which is intended as a guide to telehealth insurance laws and regulations for healthcare providers, lawmakers, entrepreneurs, telemedicine companies, and other industry stakeholders.
According to the report, although telehealth coverage has expanded widely, the same cannot be said for reimbursement/payment parity.
“Currently, 22 states maintain laws expressly addressing reimbursement of telehealth services (an increase from 16 states in 2019), and 14 of those offer true “payment parity” (an increase from 10 in 2019), meaning that providers outside those 14 states may find they receive lower payment for telehealth-based services compared to in-person services (i.e., same service code, but different reimbursement rates),” the report said. “States with payment parity laws are Arkansas, California, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.”
Kaiser Family Foundation Analysis Shows Covid-19 Pandemic’s Effects on Mental Health and SUD
A new issue
brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that about four in 10 U.S. adults have reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder during the Covid-19 global pandemic, up from one in 10 adults who reported these symptoms from January to June 2019.
Meanwhile, a Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll from July 2020 found that many adults are reporting specific negative effects on their mental health and well-being, such as difficulty sleeping (36%) or eating (32%), increases in alcohol and consumption or substance use (12%), and worsening chronic conditions (12%) due to worry and stress about the coronavirus.
The study also examines the effects of adults losing their jobs, communities of color, young adults, and essential workers.
Pandemic-Related Alcohol Abuse Leads to Hospitalizations for Liver Disease
Hospitals nationwide have reported dramatic increases in alcohol-related admissions for critical diseases such as alcoholic hepatitis and liver failure, according to a story published this week in the
Los Angeles Times.
The story reported that alcoholism-related liver disease was a growing problem even before the Covid-19 pandemic, with about 15 million people diagnosed with the condition nationwide and with hospitalizations doubling during the last decade.
“But the pandemic has dramatically added to the toll,” the story noted. “Although national figures are not available, admissions for alcoholic liver disease at Keck Hospital of the University of Southern California were up 30% in 2020 compared with 2019, said Dr. Brian Lee, a transplant hepatologist who treats the condition in alcoholics.”
Meanwhile, specialists affiliated with the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, Harvard University, and Mount Sinai Health System in New York City reported rates of admissions for alcoholic liver disease have risen by up to 50% since last March.
Click
here to read the full story.
CMS’ Medicaid Initiatives Can Help States Fund the New Crisis Stabilization Services for Callers to the 988 Hotline
In a recent interview with
Crisis Talk, Kirsten Beronio, NABH’s director of policy and regulatory affairs, explains how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Medicaid initiatives can help states fund crisis stabilization services for callers to 988, the new three-digit national hotline for behavioral health emergencies.
“988 has the potential to be a game-changer,” said Beronio, a former senior policy advisor at CMS, “And if we talk about it as a behavioral health crisis line, then states and commercial payers are more likely to see it as offering concrete opportunities to make improvements on a broader set of behavioral health issues that they’ve been struggling to address.”
Click here to
read Kirsten’s interview.
Register Today for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week: March 22-28, 2021
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) urges providers to register and sponsor an event for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week, which will be held from March 22-28 this year.
The week-long observance highlights science-based facts on how drugs and alcohol affect the brain and body, and NIDA has created five steps for providers to host an event.
Click
here to register and learn more.
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
A new study from researchers at the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry found that people with serious mental illness are significantly overrepresented in deaths by suicide, even compared with individuals with other psychiatric diagnoses. Despite making up around 4% of the population of the United States, people with serious mental illness accounted for more than twice (8.7%) of those deaths by suicide, according to the
results published in
Schizophrenia Research.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond