Advocacy E-News June 7, 2016
June 7, 2016
CONSUMER AND FAMILY MEMBERS FEE-FOR-SERVICE TRANSITION INFORMATION SESSION
The Division of Mental Health and Addictions Services will be holding a consumer and family members fee-for-service transition information session on Monday, June 20th at the Monmouth County Library. Join NJ Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services and Medicaid for an Overview of the Transition to the Fee-for-Service Reimbursement System. Take this opportunity to ask questions of the subject matter experts.
NEW JERSEY TO SUBMIT NEW MEDICAID BEHAVIORAL HEALTH WAIVER
The New Jersey Department of Human Services (DHS) has announced its intention to submit an application to renew the Section 1115 Demonstration “Comprehensive Waiver” to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This waiver proposes to among other things move the State’s public mental health system to an at-risk managed care behavioral health delivery system. A copy of the Notice and the Comprehensive Waiver Renewal Application are available for public review on the Department’s website at http://www.state.nj.us/humanservices/dmahs/home/waiver.html
DRUG TREATMENT BEDS FOR THE POOR ARE DISAPPEARING IN N.J.
New Jersey’s substance abuse treatment network has undergone a major upheaval in the last five years, with beds for the neediest disappearing, expensive for-profit institutions moving in and the state’s outpatient capacity skyrocketing. The state has lost more than 40 percent of its substance abuse treatment beds for the poor and uninsured since 2010, a blow to the indigent population as a heroin epidemic rages on.
MEDICAID REIMBURSEMENT RATES STILL IN FLUX FOR BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SERVICES
New Jersey officials have continued to tweak proposed reimbursement rates for behavioral health services for the state’s most vulnerable residents as they fine-tune plans to overhaul aspects of the state’s Medicaid program. But with just under four weeks to go before the end of the fiscal year, when some elements of the transition are set to begin, leaders of the organizations that provide these mental health and addiction treatments have reiterated concerns that the new system will leave them, and their patients, far short.
THE STIGMA OF MENTAL ILLNESS IS UNDER ATTACK BY SUFFERERS, WHO ARE COMING OUT PUBLICLY AND DEFIANTLY
Likened by some to the gay rights movement, with its beginnings in personal revelation, the groundswell to lift the stigma connected with mental illness has had a multiplying effect accelerated by social media. The more people who “come out” about their mental illness and are met with acceptance, the more others feel it’s safe to do the same. Since the beginning of this year, millions have tweeted about their mental illness. The movement to lift the stigma is also changing how mental illness is portrayed in popular culture and the arts.
FIND YOUR LOCAL NAMI
