The Excellence in Mental Health and Addiction Act demonstration established a federal definition and criteria for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs). These entities, a new provider type in Medicaid, are designed to provide a comprehensive range of mental health and substance use disorder services to vulnerable individuals. CCBHCs are non-profit organizations or units of local government behavioral health authority. They must provide (or contract with partner organizations to provide) nine types of services, with emphasis on 24-hour crisis care, evidence-based practices, care coordination with local primary care and hospital partners, and integration with physical health care.
Before CCBHCs
- Mary is hearing voices and doesn’t know where to get help, so she turns to opioids to help dull the problem.
- Mary develops an opioid addiction and overdoses. Emergency responders are called.
- Mary is revived with naloxone and discharged from the hospital with a referral to a community provider.
- Mary attends the appointment, but the provider cannot issue a prescription for MAT and makes a referral to a MAT clinic two hours away where she can receive the needed prescription.
- Mary gets worse and never makes it to her MAT clinic. She resumes opioid use and begins drinking alcohol.
- Mary causes a public disturbance while intoxicated and experiencing a mental health crisis. The police are called and Mary spends the night in jail detoxing.
- Mary is released from jail the next day and referred for substance abuse use disorder (SUD) services, but there is a six-week wait for an appointment.
- Mary continues a dangerous downward spiral, prompting continued interaction with law enforcement and ED professionals.
After CCBHCs
- Mary is hearing voices and doesn’t know where to get help, so she turns to opioids to help dull the problem.
- Mary is contacted by a care coordinator working with the hospital and the local CCBHC as part of routine community outreach to opioid users.
- Outreach worker schedules a same day appointment for Mary at the CCBHC.
- Mary is transported to the CCBHC, where MAT is prescribed and administered immediately.
- The CCBHC also conducts a mental health screening, which determines Mary is experiencing a first episode of psychosis. A psychiatric treatment plan is developed and a care team is assembled with follow-up plan in place
- Mary’s outreach manager ensures she has what she needs to attend appointments (transportation, access at convenient times, etc.) and maintain her treatment plan
- Mary is stabilized and maintains her treatment plan and no longer requires urgent or high intensity services.
For more information regarding CCBHCs, please visit https://www.thenationalcouncil.org/ccbhc-success-center/ccbhcta-overview/