Extended Deadline: NABH Annual Membership Updates Are Due Friday, Sept. 16
NABH has extended the deadline to
Friday, Sept. 16 for members to submit changes about their organizations for the online-only NABH 2022 Membership Directory.
Last month NABH sent its system members a message with a link to the association’s membership-update tool. To help ensure we have the most accurate information on our members, please use this tool to verify your system’s information.
NABH has added several new categories this year. The answers to these questions will help us provide a more accurate description of our diverse membership to policymakers, regulators, partner organizations, and the media.
Please be sure to enter information for all your system’s facilities so that we have a better picture of our diverse membership.
If you need NABH to re-send the link, please contact Maria Merlie at
maria@nabh.org. Thank you for your cooperation!
NABH and Partner Groups Ask HHS Secretary Becerra to Integrate Mental and Physical Health Within ASPR
NABH and more than 50 other advocacy organizations this week sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) Secretary Becerra that urged the Biden administration to integrate mental and physical health within the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR).
Last month HHS
announced that Becerra had elevated the then-existing Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response from a staff division to an operating division—taking the new name of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response—in an effort to elevate ASPR to a standalone agency with the department, similar to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). HHS’ announcement said the change would allow ASPR to mobilize a coordinated national response more effectively and efficiently during future disasters and emergencies.
This week, NABH was one of many organizations that called on HHS to use this opportunity to integrate mental and physical health when forming a national response to such events.
“Therefore, with the elevation of ASPR within HHS, the Biden administration must seize this important opportunity to integrate our mental and physical health response in order to truly ensure ASPR is able to fulfill its mission to prepare and respond to health crises,” the organizations wrote in their letter to Becerra. “Needed steps include having senior positions within ASPR dedicated to ensuring the integration of mental health and substance use into all of ASPR’s work, as well as broader staff training to ensure personnel have sufficient background on why mental health is so important to emergency preparedness and response.”
Click
here to read the entire letter.
CEO Alliance for Mental Health Releases Updated Unified Vision for Transforming Mental Health and Substance Use Car
The CEO Alliance for Mental Health—of which NABH is a member organization— this week released an update Unified Vision for Transforming Mental Health and Substance Use Care for 2022.
Please read the updated
vision, which includes information related to the national 988 behavioral health crisis line that launched last month.
Also, please remember to follow us
@NABHbehavioral and on
LinkedIn at the National Association for Behavioral Healthcare to share our posts about the vision.
HRSA Announces Funding for 2023 Rural Health Network Development Program
Both not-for-profit and for-profit organizations are eligible to apply for the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy’s (FORHP) 2023 Rural Health Development Program, a four-year program to support integrated healthcare networks to improve outcomes and strengthen the nation’s rural healthcare system.
The FORHP will make 44 awards of up to $300,000 each as part of the program, which focuses on four domains: improving access by addressing gaps in care, workforce shortages, better workflows and/or improving the quality of healthcare services; expanding capacity and services by creating effective systems through the development of knowledge, skills, structures, and leadership models; enhancing outcomes by improving patient and/or network development outcomes through expanding or strengthening the network’s services, activities or interventions; and establishing sustainability by positioning the network to prepare for sustainable health programs through value-based care and population health management.
FORHP will hold a webinar for applicants on
Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022 from 2 p.m. to 3:30 P.M. ET. Click
here for more information about the grants and
here for next month’s webinar link.
Coalition on Physician Education in Substance Use Disorders Extends Submission Deadline for Curriculum Innovation Challenge
The Coalition on Physician Education in Substance Use Disorders (COPE), a partner organization to the Opioid Response Network, has extended the deadline for its Innovative Learning and Teaching About Substance Use/Opioid Use Disorders Curriculum Innovation Challenge to next
Wednesday, Aug. 31 at 11:59 p.m. ET.
The challenge is intended to support teams of medical school faculty and students in integrating addiction medicine/psychiatry content into core clerkship rotations. It is designed to foster engagement and collaboration between addiction medicine experts, medical school faculty (clerkship directors or the equivalent), and medical students using cutting-edge concepts and training tools. Through a series of virtual conferences, winning teams will be led in developing addiction medicine/psychiatry curriculum and planning subsequent implementation based on the needs of their school.
Click
here to learn more and apply.
Marijuana and Hallucinogen Use Among Young Adults Reached All-Time High in 2021
Marijuana and hallucinogen use reported by young adults 19 to 30 years old increased significantly in 2021 compared with five and 10 years ago, reaching historic highs in this age group since 1988, according to statistics released this week from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The findings came from the Monitoring the Future panel study, which also reported that rates of past-month nicotine vaping, which have been gradually increasing in young adults for the past four years, also continued a general upward trend in 2021, despite leveling off in 2020. Past-month marijuana vaping, which had significantly decreased in 2020, rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in 2021.
Click
here to learn more.
Enhanced NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Now Available
NABH recently made enhancements to its Denial-of-Care Portal that are intended to make the portal easier for members to use.
A year ago, NABH developed the Denial-of-Care Portal to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard to parity or the effects on patients. Now the association has updated this resource to make it more user-friendly for members and also more aligned with what regulators need to identify parity violations.
The updated portal includes fewer questions, which will require less time for members to complete. In addition, all questions are now optional. NABH hopes this will make it more likely for members to share the data they have. Lastly, NABH has added a checklist of “red flags” that were included in the
2022 MHPAEA Report to Congress from the U.S. Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury Departments in January.
Please e-mail
Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.
Save the Date for the NABH 2023 Annual Meeting!
Please mark your calendars and plan to join us in Washington, DC from
June 12-14, 2023 for next year’s NABH Annual Meeting!
Fact of the Week
About 6% of behavioral health providers and 29% of substance use treatment centers use electronic health record (EHR) technology, compared with more than 80% of hospitals that use EHRs, according to the Medicaid and CHIP Advisory Committee’s June
report to Congress (see p. 84).
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond