Biden Administration Announces RFI on Access to Care for Medicaid and CHIP Enrollees
The Biden administration this week announced a request for information (RFI) in its effort to develop a comprehensive access strategy to ensure equitable access to healthcare for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beneficiaries.
According to the announcement, this strategy will require the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to use regulations, guidance, and other tools to apply a multi-faceted approach to reducing health disparities. The agency is seeking feedback on topics such as enrolling in and maintaining coverage, accessing healthcare services and supports, and ensuring adequate provider payment rates.
“With this RFI, we are taking a first step towards a broader perspective of what ‘access’ to Medicaid means,” Daniel Tsai, director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, said in an announcement. “Ensuring access to Medicaid includes addressing a range of barriers current and potential Medicaid beneficiaries may experience, from enrolling in Medicaid to maintaining coverage, to accessing care across both fee-for-service and managed care delivery systems,” Tsai continued. “Access must also cross physical healthcare, behavioral health, and home and community-based services.”
Click
here to learn more about the process and how to provide information to CMS. The 60-day comment period opened Feb. 17.
White House Issues Proclamation for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week: Feb. 21-25
President Biden on Friday issued a proclamation that announced National Eating Disorders Awareness Week next week to build awareness around this serious behavioral health issue that has increased in recent years.
According to the announcement, nearly 1 in 10 Americans are expected to develop an eating disorder in their lifetime. Eating disorders include binge-eating, bulimia nervosa, and anorexia nervosa and can have serious or fatal consequences if left untreated.
Please remember to follow NABH on Twitter
@NABHbehavioral and on
Linkedin for social media posts during National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.
ASAM Releases ASAM Criteria® Interview Guide
This week the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and the University of California, Los Angeles Integrated Substance Abuse Programs (UCLA ISAP) released a paper-based resource to support more consistent and effective implementation of
The ASAM Criteria, a national framework for patient-centered, evidence-based addiction care.
The ASAM Criteria Assessment Interview Guide is the first publicly available, standardized version of The ASAM Criteria assessment. An announcement about the new resource said both ASAM and UCLA hope to increase both the quality and consistency of patient assessments and treatment recommendations.
Center for Rural Opioid Prevention, Treatment & Recovery to Host Contingency Management Webinar on March 2
The Center for Rural Opioid Prevention, Treatment & Recovery will host
Introduction to Contingency Management—a webinar that highlights the intervention in which tangible incentives are provided in exchange for evidence of drug or alcohol abstinence—on Wednesday, March 2 at 4 p.m. ET.
Led by Michael McDonnell, Ph.D. and Sara Parent, ND, both of Washington State University, the webinar will be available on Zoom and will educate participants on how to describe contingency management; summarize evidence supporting contingency management as an intervention for stimulant use disorders; review guidelines for implementing contingency management; and formulate strategies for overcoming barriers to contingency management implementation.
Click
here to register.
Register for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week: March 21-27, 2022
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) invites organizations to participate in National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week (NDAFW), a national health observance meant to empower teens and young adults about making informed decisions about drugs, alcohol, and addiction.
NIDA has developed five
steps to hosting an NDAFW event and created lesson
plans and other materials for educators, counselors, and prevention specialists.
Please click
here to learn how to register your organization’s event online.
Action Alliance to Host Webinar About 988 Hotline Messaging Framework on March 22
The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention (Action Alliance) will release a
988 Messaging Framework next month to help people transition to the national 988 behavioral health crisis hotline that takes effect in July.
The hourlong webinar is free and will highlight how to use the resource in public messaging efforts. The Action Alliance will host the event on Tuesday, March 22 at 2 p.m. ET.
Click
here to register.
Reminder: NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Open to Members
NABH’s Denial-of-Care Portal is available for members to provide information about their experiences with managed care organizations that impose barriers to care through insurance-claim denials.
NABH’s Managed Care Committee worked for more than a year to develop the Denial-of-Care Portal as a way to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard for parity or the effects on patients.
This NABH member-only, survey-like tool allows users to add the name of a managed care organization, type of plan, level of care, type of care (mental health or substance use disorder), duration of approved treatment, duration of unapproved treatment, criteria used to deny a claim, and more.
The portal allows members to submit individual examples of claim denials or upload multiple entries via Excel. It also includes sections on appeals and physician participation. In time, the tool could be a valuable resource for the NABH team’s advocacy efforts.
Please e-mail
Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.
NABH 2022 Annual Meeting At-A-Glance Available Online
Registration is open for NABH’s 2022 Annual Meeting—
Shaping the Future of Behavioral Healthcare—and this week NABH posted the meeting’s At-A-Glance online.
Please visit our Annual Meeting
homepage to view the At-A-Glance for preliminary meeting details, register for the meeting, and reserve a hotel room.
We hope you join us from June 13-15 in Washington!
Fact of the Week
A new estimate from
Forbes, the cost of America’s opioid crisis is now more than $1.3 trillion and rising.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.