Hill Day Returns to NABH Annual Meeting Program!
NABH is excited to welcome its members and guests back to Hill Day during the 2023 Annual Meeting!
This year NABH is working with the firm Advocacy Associates to help schedule Capitol Hill meetings and briefings for interested Annual Meeting attendees during Hill Day on
Tuesday, June 13 from 1:30 to 5 p.m. ET.
NABH will help prepare interested attendees by providing materials through a mobile app. To take advantage of this free opportunity, please indicate that you want to participate in Hill Day when you
register for the 2023 Annual Meeting, or contact NABH Administrative Coordinator
Emily Wilkins.
Please remember to
reserve your hotel room at the Salamander Washington, DC, if you haven’t done so yet. We look forward to seeing you next month!
HHS Launches FindSupport.gov During First Week of Mental Health Awareness Month
HHS on Thursday launched
FindSupport.gov, a website designed to help the public identify available resources, explore unbiased information about various treatment options, and learn how to find the support they need for problems related to mental health, drugs, or alcohol.
HHS’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed the concept for
FindSupport.gov as a response to research that people were looking for an unbiased, trustworthy source of information to receive support for mental health and substance use issues. The department also developed a brief
video to highlight the new website.
Also Thursday, HHS hosted its
Support is Here to Strengthen Mental Health summit, where HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said the Biden administration is saying to all who are struggling with mental health that support is here. “I am proud that we are changing the way mental health is viewed in this country because mental health is health, period.” Becerra tweeted.
The summit and new website coincide with the first week of Mental Health Awareness Month, which the United States has observed since 1949. The month-long observance is meant to fight stigma, provide support, educate the public, and advocate for policies that support the millions of Americans affected by mental illness.
Click
here to learn more, and please remember to follow us
@NABHbehavioral and on LinkedIn at the
National Association for Behavioral Healthcare.
DEA Extends COVID-19 Telehealth Flexibilities for Prescription of Controlled Medications for Now
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on Wednesday said it will extend its COVID-19 telemedicine flexibilities for prescription of controlled medications as the agency works to determine how to move forward in a way that gives Americans access to needed medicine with the appropriate safeguards.
An
announcement from DEA noted the agency received a record number of comments on its proposed telemedicine rules, which prompted DEA and the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to submit a draft temporary rule to the Office of Management and Budget requesting an extension. NABH submitted comments on this matter (see
CEO Update, April 28, 2023).
“Further details about the rule will become public after its full publication in the
Federal Register,” the announcement said.
CMS’ Recent Proposed Rule Would Establish Network Adequacy Requirements and Payment Transparency in Medicaid MCOs
CMS’ recent Medicaid managed care proposed rule aims to strengthen standards for more timely access to care for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) managed care enrollees and establish new payment transparency requirements in fee-for-service and managed care programs.
As NABH reported in last week’s
CEO Update, CMS is
proposing to establish maximum appointment wait-time standards for outpatient mental health and substance use disorder—adult and pediatric—and other services, including routine primary care.
News reports offered details of a call that CHIP Services Director Daniel Tsai had with reporters, in which Tsai said, “The standards we established are what we call a national floor so a state is welcome to set a standard that is higher than that, [but] they must meet at least the standard that we outlined proposed in the proposed rule,” according to an article in
Inside Health Policy, which noted the administration wants to align Medicaid wait-time standards with the two-week requirement for commercial plans.
The proposed rule would also require states to employ an independent company to conduct yearly “secret shopper surveys” that confirm a managed care plan is complying with appointment wait-time standards and the insurer’s provider directory is up-to-date.
Regarding payment rates
, Tsai was reported as saying that, historically, CMS, advocates, and providers do not have a good way of understanding and benchmarking where Medicaid payment rates are across different state programs.
“So what we do propose is that every state has to make their base rates of payments transparently available and easily accessible, and every state has to benchmark their base rates for Medicaid relative to Medicare payment rates, which is a national standard that allows for
comparison and easy benchmarking across states,” Tsai said.
Joint Commission Seeks Feedback on Proposed Workplace Violence Prevention Requirements for BHC Program
The Joint Commission this week opened its field review to gather feedback from behavioral healthcare organizations about their experiences with workplace violence to help provide the most evidence-based and relevant requirements for its Behavioral Health Care and Human Services (BHC) accreditation program.
In its announcement, the Joint Commission said its field review will ask for comments on the potential new requirements and the larger context of how behavioral healthcare organizations are currently experiencing, preventing, and monitoring workplace violence.
The field review is open through June 9 and takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete. Click
here to complete the questionnaire.
HRSA Payment Program for Rural Health Clinic Buprenorphine-Trained Providers Still Active
HHS’ Health Services and Resources Administration (HRSA) has announced that Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) are still eligible to apply for a $3,000 payment on behalf of each provider trained to prescribe buprenorphine between Jan. 1, 2019 and Jan. 25, 2023.
SAMHSA announced in January 2023 that clinicians no longer need a
DATA 2000 Waiver to prescribe buprenorphine; however, the payment program to defray earlier training cost is still active. Launched in 2021, the program pays for providers who previously trained for the waiver to prescribe buprenorphine.
HRSA said about $900,000 in program funding remains available for RHCs, which will be paid on a first-come, first-served basis until funds are exhausted. Send question to
DATA2000WaiverPayments@hrsa.gov.
NIDA Study Finds Association Between Cannabis Use Disorder and Schizophrenia
A new National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA)
study has found that young men between 21-30 years of age with a cannabis (marijuana) use disorder have an increased risk of developing schizophrenia.
The findings are notable because they emphasize that cannabis use disorder appears to be a major modifiable risk factor for schizophrenia at the population level. After evaluating more than 6 million people in Denmark for more than five decades, researchers estimated that the percentage of cases of schizophrenia that may have been avoided by preventing cannabis use disorder was as high as 30% among men aged 21-30; 15% among men aged 16-49; and 4% among women aged 16-49.
The study was a collaboration between authors at the Mental Health Services in the Capital Region of Denmark and NIDA at the National Institutes of Health.
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!
We still seek data from additional members to support advocacy on health plan denials and prior-authorization timeliness.
If you are a new participant, please e-mail NABH Administrative Coordinator
Emily Wilkins for support.
Fact of the Week
A new
study reports three in 10 Americans say they know someone affected by opioid addiction; within that group, more than half say they know someone who has died from opioid use.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.
