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AMSA TALKS - HAPPENING TODAY
OPEN DISCUSSION - ”What Would an AMSA Federal Legislative Agenda Look Like?”
Bring your creativity, ideas, answers to questions, your contacts list, brilliance and positive energy to an open facilitated discussion to help AMSA Advisors design its Federal legislative agenda. AMSA coordinator Jason Renaud will host the discussion.
Please add this one-time discussion to your calendar. Don’t miss it!
Tuesday September 17, 10 AM Pacific, 11 AM Mountain, 12 Noon Central, 1 PM Eastern.
Join Zoom Meeting - opens 9:45 AM PT, September 17.
HEADLINES
WEST OF PHILLY - Delaware County Tries Approach Beyond Police for Mentally Ill, 9/2024
A new county-wide program from the Delaware County Department of Human Services which could start as early as December 2024 will give police officers discretion to refer people with behavioral issues to a case manager instead of being arrested.
Councilmember Dr. Monica Taylor, “The goal of the program is to connect individuals to treatment and to keep them out of the criminal justice system as much as possible — and to make sure that we have the support and process in place to do that.”
LOS ANGELES - Orange County ends contract with Be Well to run Mental Health and Wellness campus, 9 2024
An audit conducted in July cited issues with how Be Well staff training, credentials and quality management were being tracked at the Mental Health and Wellness campus in Orange, according to documentation obtained by LAist. It also raised concern over the potential for inaccuracies in billing for services.
“It had nothing to do with clinical care,” said Be Well chief Phillip Franks. “It was the county monitoring our ability to do county level contract monitoring.”
SAN JOSE - Funds committed to non-police response alternatives to mental health emergencies, 9 2024
The new TRUST team must be operational by April 2025 otherwise San Jose will pull the $450K in funding.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, “We all agree it’s important to invest in an alternative response, making sure that when someone is in crisis or there’s an emergency, that we are sending the right person (or) right resource out.”
EUGENE - Lane County's new mental health crisis vans, 9/2024
Interview with Olivia McClelland, the Supervisor of the new Lane County Mobile Crisis Response Program, on roll out and staffing up.
CENTRAL KANSAS - Great Bend Mobile Crisis Response program begins; growth expected, 9/2024
Tracie Haselhorst of the Center for Counseling & Consultation, “We are just getting this program started with only two people available to respond now in our mobile effort. We need more professionals on staff to offer the service 24/7. Our goal is to have five people available to respond in our mobile-response vehicle.”
PRESS RELEASE - CMS Ok’s New Hampshire’s Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams, 9/2024
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approved New Hampshire’s Medicaid State Plan Amendment for community-based mobile crisis intervention teams to provide services for people experiencing a mental health or substance use disorder crisis. New Hampshire is now able to connect Medicaid-eligible individuals in crisis to a behavioral health provider 24 hours per day, 365 days a year. Importantly, this approval marks 20 states and the District of Columbia that have expanded access to community-based mental health and substance use services under a new Medicaid option created by the Biden-Harris American Rescue Plan.
SANTA BARBARA - County Increases Staff for Mental Health Crisis Calls, 9/2024
Before services were expanded, teams would go out primarily to determine if a patient needed to be involuntarily detained for a 72-hour psychiatric hospitalization. Now, in teams of two, they can help de-escalate situations, do crisis assessment and help hand-offs to support services. The teams are now available 24/7 in Santa Barbara, Lompoc and Santa Maria.
California recently made mobile crisis services reimbursable for MediCal beneficiaries, but anyone can still call the service at any time. The reason behind the reimbursement is to reduce use of law enforcement and emergency rooms for mental health-related emergency calls.
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