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Health care payments continue to evolve and shift away from fee‐for‐service payment systems that typically reward volume and move to value‐based payment (VBP) models that incentivize high‐quality, cost‐effective care. While this is happening more for physical health services, there's more uncertainty about the role of behavioral health. A new white paper aims to tackle that question with information about existing models that have been implemented along with recommendations for federal and state policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year ended on a high note for the mental health field with the release of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (also known as the "Omnibus"). The omnibus appropriations funding package, which passed Dec. 23, 2022 by the House of Representatives and earlier in the week by the U.S. Senate, contains key mental health provisions, including significant increases for the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant and for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Medicaid‐eligible children are not receiving recommended timely follow‐up care in the community after a mental health‐related visit to a hospital emergency department, a newly published study suggests. The study's numbers paint an especially disappointing picture for Black children, likely reflecting a number of conditions ranging from a lack of diversity in the behavioral health workforce to limited access to school‐based services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States are overcoming a variety of structural and financial barriers to make inroads in meeting the mental health needs of persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, a new report suggests. No one model has emerged as the ideal approach, though in all cases there has been a need to improve coordination of effort across multiple organizational silos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to physicians in all health care categories poses a problem for Medicaid beneficiaries, but a research letter published this month highlights the disproportionate challenge in identifying psychiatric services for this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on medicaid expansion proposed by North Carolina health and human services officials. It will enhance quality of care and service access as well as enable local management entities (LMEs) to make alliance with community stakeholders, consumers and providers, that is to combine services into a single model. According to the Director of North Carolina Division of Mental Health Steve Jordan, the LMEs will be operational by January 1, 2013. It will improve service delivery.

The article talks about social media campaign of Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC) and the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems. Topics include aim of the social medial campaign such as Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMD) exclusion; impact of IMD exclusion on preventing people with serious mental illness from receiving hospital care; and letter of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regarding its willingness to improve access to substance use disorder care.