Latest California Healthline Stories
Hearing Examines States’ Behavioral Health Restructuring
The state has big plans for restructuring the behavioral health system in California. State legislators held a rare four-committee joint hearing this week to hear about the details of that reorganization, and to raise concerns about it.
“We understand the need to streamline and cut costs,” Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) said, “but at what cost?”
Assembly member Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) said California’s consumers must be at the center of all discussion about changing health care policies and programs.
“I think it is critical to pause, as a body,” Mitchell said, “to make sure consumers aren’t harmed by this streamlining of our departments.”
Assembly Passes Mental Health, Addiction Coverage Bill
To Assembly member Jim Beall (D-San Jose), it just makes sense. When private insurers fail to cover addiction and mental health services, he said, the cost of those illnesses fall on the state.
“If you don’t treat it, it gets worse. If it gets worse, it gets shoved over to the public sector,” Beall said. “And then, if it gets shoved into the public sector, it gets worse. Then they end up in prison, with a substance abuse or mental health problem in prison, and this is costing the state way too much money. We need to stop the cycle.”
Beall is the author of AB 154, a bill requiring insurers to cover mental health and addiction services, which passed the Assembly floor late last week.
Court Agrees to New Mental Health Plan for Sacramento County
A federal district judge yesterday approved the final settlement of a lawsuit that challenged a plan by Sacramento County to restructure and downsize its mental health system. Yesterday’s settlement means mental health services will remain at their current levels in the county — and, in fact, may even improve, given a number of proposals the county still hopes to adopt.
The county hopes to save money by consolidating two county-operated clinics into one, according to Mary Ann Bennett, director of the county’s Division of Mental Health.
“One of them is in a leased facility,” Bennett said. “So we want to get out of the leased facility, and we will get some savings there.”
Mental Health Services Heading to DHCS
Integration of care is one of the touchstones of the health care reform conversation. It’s a big and complicated task, though, to integrate health care for the 7.5 million Californians on Medi-Cal.
The state is taking a big step toward that goal by shifting Medi-Cal mental health benefits away from the Department of Mental Health and into the Department of Health Care Services by July 1 of next year. The idea is to incorporate mental health care and substance abuse treatment into people’s overall health care, so that it’s not a segmented benefit.
The tricky part is the transition, because you don’t want a disruption in care while you’re changing that organizational structure, according to Toby Douglas, director of DHCS.
Advocates, Business Groups Raising Concerns About State’s New Autism Coverage Mandate
Nicole Evans of the California Association of Health Plans, Henry Loubet of the insurance brokerage firm Keenan and Lorri Unumb of Autism Speaks spoke with California Healthline about the benefits and shortcomings of a new state law requiring private insurers to cover certain autism therapies.
Two Faces of Mental Health Treatment in California
County and community mental health care providers are optimistic about a major overhaul of California’s mental health services that includes plans for a new state agency and a realignment of management and funding.
Dual Eligibles a Tricky Population To Manage
The state Department of Health Care Services wants to integrate care for about 1.1 million dual eligibles in California — people eligible for both Medicare and Medi-Cal services — by moving them to managed care plans.
“These two insurance programs don’t necessarily work well together,” according to Neal Adams, deputy director of the California Institute for Mental Health. “The benefit design is not equal across all platforms.”
Adams was part of a stakeholder summit convened last week by DHCS to discuss the dual eligible demonstration project. It was the first of three stakeholder meetings this month. Others are scheduled Dec. 12 in San Francisco and Dec. 15 in Los Angeles.
Mental Health Needs High, Treatment Low
About two million Californians are under stress and need some kind of mental health care — and are not getting the help they need, according to a UCLA study released yesterday.
“There are a lot of people with mental health needs, and they aren’t getting adequate care,” UCLA researcher David Grant said. “Men are less likely to seek and receive the care they need, and immigrants definitely aren’t getting their care needs met. And even native-born Latinos and Asians are unlikely to seek treatment, so that’s a definite target for the state to consider.”
The report from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research is based on 2007 data from the California Health Interview Survey.
For Mentally Ill, Home Is Where the Health Home Pilot Is
Which grant was buried in the week’s news? Rhode Island won a big award for its health insurance exchange efforts, but a second CMS announcement — that the Ocean State was approved for a Health Home Medicaid project — could have major implications for mental health care.
Ruling Raises Questions for Mental Health Coverage
An appellate court ruling in favor of a Blue Shield of California policyholder with anorexia could change how health insurers cover mental illness. However, health plans and advocates are divided on the ruling’s effects.