CEO Update 87
CMS Announces Shift in Medicaid to Curb Program Spending
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma on Thursday announced a new way for states to receive a capped amount of federal dollars for part of Medicaid to help curb spending in the federal healthcare program.
Called the Healthy Adult Opportunity (HAO), the new demonstration program in Medicaid would not be mandatory for states and would affect only Medicaid beneficiaries who are under age 65, not eligible for Medicaid due to a disability, and who are not eligible under a state plan.
“This opportunity is designed to promote the program’s objectives while furthering its sustainability for current and future beneficiaries and achieving better health outcomes by increasing the accountability for delivering results,” Verma said in a news release. “We’ve built in strong protections for our most vulnerable beneficiaries and included opportunities for states to earn savings that have to be reinvested in strengthening the program so that it can remain a lifeline for our most vulnerable.”
The agency noted in a fact sheet that states will be expected to apply certain beneficiary protections for people with HIV and behavioral health conditions, including coverage of substantially all drugs for mental health (antipsychotics and antidepressants) consistent with Medicare part D coverage, substantially all antiretroviral drugs consistent with Medicare part D, and all forms, formulations, and delivery mechanisms for drugs that the Food and Drug Administration has approved to treat opioid use disorders for which there are rebate agreements in place with the manufacturers.
Click here to read Administrator Verma’s letter to state Medicaid directors about HAO.
CDC Reports U.S. Drug Overdose Death Rate Down, Opioid Overdose Death Rate Up in 2018
The age-adjusted rate of U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2018 was 4.6% lower than the rate in 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
New data from the National Vital Statistics System also show there were 67,367 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2018, 4.1% fewer than the 70,237 deaths reported in 2017.
Despite the decline in overall drug overdose deaths, there was a 10% increase in the rate of drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, such as fentanyl, in 2018 compared with 2017.
Furthermore, the age-adjusted rate of overdose deaths involving cocaine more than tripled from 2012 through 2018, while the rate of deaths involving certain psychostimulants, such as methamphetamine, increased nearly five-fold.
The CDC also reported that decreases in life expectancy between 2014 and 2017 were driven mostly by deaths due to unintentional injuries, suicide, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Improvements in life expectancy between 2017 and 2018, meanwhile, were driven by decreases in mortality from cancer, unintentional injuries, and chronic lower respiratory diseases. The positive contributions to the change in life expectancy were offset, in part, by the rising number of deaths by suicide, chronic liver disease, and cirrhosis.
Unintentional injuries and suicide remain in the top 10 leading cause of death in the United States.
NABH to Participate in MAT Panel at Upcoming Opioid Management Summit
Sarah Wattenberg, MSW, NABH’s director of quality and addiction services, will moderate a panel about overcoming the barriers to implementing medication assisted treatment (MAT) at the 3rd Annual Opioid Management Summit on Friday, Feb. 28 in A.
The panel will include NABH members Joe Pritchard of Pinnacle Treatment Centers and Gregory Marotta of CleanSlate. Geetha Subramaniam, MD, who serves as deputy director of the Clinical Trial Network at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Shawn Ryan, MD, president and chief medical officer at BrightView, will round out the panel.
Click here to learn more and register for the summit, which will be held at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center in Alexandra, Va. on Feb. 27 and 28.
SAMHSA Accepting Applications for Behavioral Health Clinic and CORC Grants The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has announced it will issue 98 grants of up to $2 million per year for up to two years for its Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) expansion grants.
The program is meant to improve the quality of community mental and substance use disorder treatment by expanding CCBHCs, which provide integrated services for individuals and families.
Applications are due Tuesday, March 10. Click here to learn more and apply.
SAMHSA also announced it will issue two grants of up to $850,000 for four years for its Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers (CORC) grants.
The program is intended to operate centers that provide a full spectrum of treatment and recovery support services to address the nation’s ongoing opioid crisis.
Applications are due Tuesday, March 17. Click here for more information and to apply.
HRSA Accepting Applications for 2020 Opioid-Impacted Family Support Program
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is accepting applications for its 2020 Opioid-Impacted Family Support Program (OIFSP) through April 13.
OIFSP is intended to support training programs that would expand the number of peer support specialists and other behavioral healthcare-related paraprofessionals who work with integrated teams that provide services to children whose parents have opioid and other substance use disorders, as well as the family members who are in guardianship roles for those children.
HRSA said it expects about $11.5 million to be available in fiscal 2020 to fund about 19 awards. Click here to learn more and apply.
2020 NABH Annual Meeting Hotel Cut-Off Date is Approaching!
The cut-off date to reserve a room at the Mandarin Oriental Washington, DC for the 2020 NABH Annual Meeting is Friday Feb. 14.
Please reserve your room today if you haven’t done so yet. NABH sold out its room block in 2019. And please visit our Annual Meeting homepage for registration, speaker, and preliminary program information.
We look forward to seeing you in Washington!
Fact of the Week
The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential, which include drugs such as methamphetamine, amphetamine, and methylphenidate, increased from 0.2 in 1999 to 0.8 in 2012. From 2012 through 2018, the rate increased on average by 30% per year to a rate of 3.9 in 2018.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond