September is National Recovery Awareness Month
This week kicked off National Recovery Month, a national observance every September since 1989 intended to promote and support new evidence-based treatment and recovery practices, the nation’s recovery community, and the dedication of service providers and community leaders who make recovery possible.
During this past week’s Overdose Awareness Week, which concludes tomorrow, President Biden issued a National Recovery Month
proclamation in which he acknowledged the more than 20 million Americans recovering from substance use disorder and highlighted his administration’s efforts to support recovery.
“This year, we secured nearly $22 billion from the Congress to support drug prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and recovery support services, with a focus on underserved communities,” the president said in his proclamation. “With the additional $4 billion investment from our American Rescue Plan, my administration is expanding recovery community organizations, recovery high schools, collegiate recovery programs, and recovery residences.”
For more information about National Recovery Month, please visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s (SAMHSA)
website, and please remember to follow NABH
@NABHbehavioral and on LinkedIn at the
National Association for Behavioral Healthcare.
HHS Announces $47.6 Million in New Grant Funding for School-Based Mental Health
The U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) this week announced $47.6 million in new grant funding opportunities through this
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to support mental health programs in schools.
Of that amount, $37.6 million is allocated for Project Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education, or
AWARE, which is meant to develop a sustainable infrastructure for school-based mental health programs and services that promote the healthy social and emotional development of school-aged youth and prevent youth violence in schools.
The remaining $10 million is for the Resiliency in Communities after Stress and Trauma
(ReCast) grant program, which helps assist high-risk youth and families by promoting resilience and equity in communities that have recently experienced civil unrest, community violence, and/or collective trauma through evidence-based, violence prevention, and community youth engagement programs, as well as connections to trauma-informed behavioral health services.
Nonfatal Opioid-Involved Overdoses in Emergency Departments Are Rising
The rate of nonfatal, opioid-involved overdose emergency medical services (EMS) encounters increased by an average of 4% quarterly from January 2018 – March 2022, according to new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The findings also reported that rates increased across most sociodemographic and county characteristics. Researchers noted that monitoring nonfatal, opioid-involved overdose trends in EMS data in near real time can help identify where overdose affects communities disproportionately and direct equitable response and prevention efforts, such as increased access to harm-reduction services and connections to care and treatment.
Click
here to read the full CDC report.
Reminder: 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.
NABH Submits Medicare Advantage Program Recommendations to CMS
NABH this week responded to a request for information from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) about the Medicare Advantage (MA) program and behavioral health.
In its
letter, NABH cited a recent study that found MA networks included only 23% of psychiatrists in a county on average — lower than all other medical specialties. “Not surprisingly, MA enrollees with depressive symptoms report more difficulty accessing needed treatment and rated their experience with the MA plans as worse than in traditional Medicare,” the letter said.
The association provided information and outlined recommendations related to advancing health equity, expanding access, encouraging innovation to promote patient-centered care, and engaging partners.
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!
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
Since October, the use of hashtags related to self-harm – such as “#shtwt, short for Self-Harm Twitter – has increased roughly 500%, averaging tens of thousands of mentions per month, according to a new
study from the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond