Latest California Healthline Stories
Advocates: Skimping on Mental Health Funding Has Consequences
Mental health experts say two disparate decisions last week — the Supreme Court ordering California to reduce its prison population and the state Legislature’s decision to improve security at state mental hospitals — are related to a larger, longstanding problem of chronic underfunding for mental health care in California.
Careful Steps in Dismantling Mental Health Agency
It’s a big move, eliminating an entire department of important state services.
Over and over yesterday, in two separate health and human services budget subcommittee hearings, officials insisted that eliminating the California Department of Mental Health was not a diminishment of services, but rather a reorganization.
“There are ways we can create better efficiencies, better ways of integrating behavioral and physical health,” Toby Douglas of the Department of Health Care Services said. “It will happen gradually, it will happen over the next year. We want to work with the Department of Mental Health, to make mental health an essential component of health care delivery.”
Intermediate Care Facilities Catch a Break
A U.S. District Court judge this week issued a ruling that temporarily prohibits California from freezing Medi-Cal reimbursement rates for intermediate care facilities that care for residents with developmental disabilities. Medi-Cal is California’s Medicaid program.
A permanent ruling is expected soon, possibly by the end of the week. However, even the temporary stay is a big victory for developmental services providers and their patients, according to Deborah Pacyna of the California Association of Health Facilities.
“These providers are required to provide quality care 24 hours a day, and yet they’re having to pay out of their own pockets to do that, to the point of possibly closing,” Pacyna said, adding, “They’re paying for patient assessments, staffing, fuel, food, in spite of being faced with this rate freeze, so we hope the judge recognizes this financial hardship.”
More Emphasis Now on Mental Health Care
The California Senate Office of Research released a new policy brief this week that outlines some of the new ways mental health issues will need to be handled in California.
The brief laid out several developments in mental health care:
Dealing With a Taboo Problem in Asian Community
Asian American girls have the highest rates of depressive symptoms of any racial/ethnic or gender group, according to a study released last month by the National Alliance for Mental Illness. Asian Americans are at a high risk for many other mental health issues — including higher rates of suicide deaths among young women and older women in the Asian community.
California has the largest Asian American population in the nation, by far. A conference is being convened today in Los Angeles to address the issue.
“The quality of mental health care provided to ethnic minority groups is inadequate,” conference keynote speaker Stanley Sue said. “There is a paucity of research, especially rigorous research such as clinical trials, on treatment outcomes for ethnic minority groups.”
Valley Children’s Crisis Center Facing Its Own Crisis
Failure to meet state regulations threatens to close Fresno County’s only psychiatric crisis center for children and adolescents. County and state officials are hoping to work out a compromise that would allow the center to remain open.
Hits Keep Coming for Mental Health Community in California
Cuts in funding for two years running. Redirection of $861 million. Major shift of responsibility away from the state and onto the counties. Can all of that actually result in more efficient and integrated mental health care?
Mental Health Comes Up $1.4 Billion Short
According to a study just released by National Alliance on Mental Illness, California spent $587 million fewer dollars on mental health services than it did two years ago.
Add in the $861 million in redirection of Prop. 63 funds in the proposed new budget, and you’re looking at a total loss of roughly $1.4 billion in mental health funding. But losses can be dealt with, as long as they’re not perpetual budget drains, according to Pat Ryan, executive director of the California Mental Health Directors Association.
“It’s very scary,” Ryan said. “We have pointed out, the amount of money they’re estimating to pay for services [in the new budget restructuring] is already starting out less than we know it costs to provide those services.”
Mental Health Advocates See Promise, Problems in Budget Plan
Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to shift authority and funding for mental health services from Sacramento to the state’s 58 counties could be a good thing, mental health advocates say, as long as a consistent flow of money arrives with the new responsibilities.
The first thing to know is AB 39 by Jim Beall (D-San Jose) is really AB 3632.
The new bill, to be heard when the Legislature goes back to work Jan. 3, was written to replace money appropriated this year by the old bill (AB 3632), which was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger and his blue pencil at the end of the last session.
That’s the simple part. Explaining just what that money is for, that’s a little tougher.