(Source: MIRS.news, Published 05/25/23) Behavioral health providers struggling to maintain talent and receive funding to provide comprehensive services are calling on legislators to address these challenges.
Leaders of behavioral health centers are seeing their practitioners burdened by low monetary incentives and large loads of administrative work.
Many of the professionals that the health centers have lost are “no longer attracted” to providing services to individuals covered by Medicaid due to the “administrative challenges” that lead them to work for an organization that doesn’t accept Medicaid, said Debora Matthews, President and CEO of the Children’s Center in Wayne County.
Behavioral health clinicians average 40% of their working time doing paperwork getting authorizations for care or creating service plans, said Sean De Four, President and CEO of Southwest Solutions.
“That seems egregious to me that we’re not using their talents and expertise in a way that it was meant to,” said Rep. Felicia Brabec (D-Ann Arbor), who worked as a therapist before taking office.
Master’s level clinicians at Family Service and Children’s Aid in Jackson are getting paid approximately $46,000 per year, said President Bob Powell.
“They can make more money supervising at a nearby Starbucks. Why would they take on student loans and go through all the trauma of working with traumatized kids and families?” Powell said.
He said organizations like his need help incentivizing graduate programs in counseling and social work to retain workers in public mental health systems without losing them to privatized care.
Southwest Solutions and some other organizations have become Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHC) through expansion grants from the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
Each presenter at the House Behavioral Health Subcommittee meeting called on legislators to support legislation to fund the state’s expansion of the number of CCBHC sites.
CCBHCs provide comprehensive behavioral health care regardless of ability to pay, place of residence or age and must provide care in one location to eliminate the need for multiple providers.
De Four said, because of the grant, 500 more children per year are able to receive care who would not have qualified for services in the publicly funded system because their health needs “weren’t severe enough.”
The state’s criteria to become certified as a CCBHC leaves out organizations like Southwest Solutions.
De Four said the SAMHSA grant will run out of funding in September, meaning they will not be able to afford to provide the services.
“That’s 500 kids per year, that’s 80 more people that may die from opioid disorder,” de Four said.
