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State teams convene to strengthen collaboration across child welfare, behavioral health, and Medicaid

This week, our In Focus section highlights the Children’s Behavioral Health (CBH) State Policy Lab, held February 7−9, in Baltimore, MD. Health Management Associates, Inc., (HMA), in partnership with national philanthropies and associations, hosted the Policy Lab, which provided an unprecedented opportunity for state cross-systems teams to conduct in-depth work toward creating an equitable behavioral health system of care for children and youth.

Background

The lack of collaboration and misaligned strategies and policies across state child welfare, behavioral health, and Medicaid has contributed to unsatisfactory outcomes for children and youth in our communities. The COVID-19 public health emergency exacerbated these issues, as the rate of mental health and substance use disorders (SUD) increased and many families experienced traumatic events during this time. Increasingly, states and local jurisdictions are exposed to threats or actual class action lawsuits based on the inadequate care of children and youth involved in the child welfare settings.

Fortunately, federal and state efforts and investments to address the youth systems of care—including schools, community, delivery systems, and community-based child placing agencies—are in motion. Though the diversity of efforts being implemented across local and state agencies are critical, these complex issues require collaboration across multiple systems, including Child Welfare, Behavioral Health authorities, Medicaid, and K-12 Education. A cross-sector strategic approach will enable comprehensive identification of gaps, policy solutions, and best practices, as well as highlight opportunities for cross-sector braided or blended funding to build a system of care that supports the needs of multi-system children, youth, and their families.

Child Behavioral Policy Lab

The current behavioral health crisis presents an opportunity to address long-term challenges and divisions and to build a truly comprehensive approach. This is why HMA sponsored the Children’s Behavioral Health State Policy Lab which convened key partners within a state and across states. The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Casey Family Programs, National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD) and MITRE, a Children’s Behavioral Health (CBH) State Policy Lab, joined HMA in funding, organizing and providing consultation support for the meeting.

The nine participating states—Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin—were selected through a competitive process based on the goals and commitment of the state and the thorough analysis of gaps and opportunities, demonstration of collaborative state interagency partnerships, and engagement of youth and adults.

The participating states committed their leadership teams to join the Policy Lab in laying the foundational work of development of statewide plans that would advance their collective goal of creating a more united system of care. Participants learned about intergenerational trauma and resilience. The sessions also provided participants with data that helped provide context to the problems we are trying to solve. Presenters included Aliyah Zeien, a national child welfare policy advocate and youth ambassador, with lived experience who highlighted that 25 percent of foster youth will spend time in prison or other enforcement systems within two years of leaving the child welfare system. Her experience and reflections served as call for action to actively engage families and youth in all system planning, advocacy, and policy work.

Key areas of focus

Following these brief educational sessions, each state had substantial “team time” to develop a road map and set of next steps for continuing their work after the Policy Lab. Expert facilitators guided state teams through discussions on three key issues:

Service array. State teams were challenged to define their array of services and develop collective agreements on how to develop enhanced treatment options for children and their families. With an emphasis on building a full continuum of care with community-based supports and fewer children in residential facilities, each team considered challenges such as eligibility, access, and workforce. Prevention, diversion, and engagement of people with lived experience to help with system development were common commitments in state action teams.
Financing. The teams considered their statutory authority, funding streams, funding partners, contract vehicles, and financing mechanisms. They also worked on ideas for blending and braiding funding, with a focus on Medicaid and leveraging collective opportunities to develop staff and contractual resources.
Governance. State teams worked through difficult conversations, including how to measure success, how to manage accountability and monitoring, how to collaboratively design services and case practice, while meaningfully sharing data and creating interoperability within their systems while respecting confidentiality and privacy concerns.

What’s Next

Since the Policy Lab program, most participating states have embarked on next steps identified during the workshop, such as vetting their plans with state leadership, creating an ongoing team for implementation, and identifying community partners. HMA and HMA Companies, including Leavitt Partners, are collaborating with our Policy Lab partners and the state agencies to further develop these plans and prepare for implementations that rethink our approach to services for youth and their families.

For more information about the Policy Lab and follow-on work, please contact our experts below.

Federal policymakers consider current and future spending measures on simultaneous tracks

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This week, our In Focus section covers Congress’s and the Administration’s parallel efforts to finalize fiscal year (FY) 2024 spending bills and begin the budget process for FY 2025.

Congress approved a bipartisan package for some of the FY 2024 spending bills, and on March 9, 2024, President Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024 into law (PL 118-42). Programs funded through this measure include the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and other federal nutrition supports, rental assistance for safe and affordable housing, and veterans medical care and benefits.

Several mandatory funding extensions of public health programs and health-related policies also found their way into the 2024 consolidated appropriations package, including extending the Community Health Center Fund, delaying reductions in the disproportionate share hospital allotments, defining Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers (CCBHCs) as a Medicaid service, extending incentive payments for certain Medicare providers, and mitigating the impact of cuts to the Medicare physician fee schedule.

These policies, however, addressed a narrower set of issues than the expansive and bipartisan legislation that has been moving through both chambers of Congress. For example, House and Senate members have worked on respective bipartisan policies affecting price transparency, pharmacy benefit managers, and Medicare site-neutral policies, among others.

Meanwhile, President Biden released the FY 2025 Budget proposal March 11, 2024, kicking off the annual budget process. Like the administration’s FY 2024 budget proposal, the FY 2025 plan emphasizes deficit reduction and continues to make equity and Medicare solvency cornerstones of the budget. Health-related priorities include expanding access to affordable healthcare services, lowering drug costs, improving maternal health, addressing the mental health and substance use disorder crises, and enhancing biodefense and preparedness activities.

Check out the FY 2025 budget analysis from Leavitt Partners, a Health Management Associates, Inc. (HMA), company, and a deeper dive into the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024.

What We’re Watching

Congress is continuing negotiations on the outstanding spending bills, including the one that funds the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education through September 2024. Lawmakers are working to reach an agreement before the next funding deadline of March 22.

The administration’s FY 2025 budget proposals are generally being characterized as a blueprint for President Biden’s re-election campaign and, if successful, a policy agenda for his second term. Though Congress has already begun holding hearings on the budget request, members on both sides of the aisle will likely focus on issues that resonate in an election year.

Regardless of the outcome of the November elections, Congress has an opportunity to address unfinished business during the lame duck session later this year.

HMA and Leavitt Partners collaborate to monitor legislative and regulatory developments in healthcare and adjacent spaces and to assess the impact of policy changes on the healthcare industry.

HMA white paper examines expanding home care value through innovative client and caregiving supports

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As the U.S. population ages, non-medical personal care services are increasingly important for supporting Americans to remain in homes, as the vast majority of them prefer. But in-home personal care services will remain in short supply throughout the country unless home care agencies have greater success recruiting and retaining caregivers. In this HMA white paper, we describe the programs developed by Help at Home, the nation’s largest personal care services providers with 53,000 in 11 states, to use technological solutions to increase ease of caregiver recruitment and to provide its caregivers with a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their work.

The latter accomplishment has been achieved through Help at Home’s innovative care management program, “Care Coordination at Help at Home,” in which its caregivers receive a weekly text asking them to complete a brief survey about their personal care client’s physical and behavioral health symptoms and any health-related social needs. This information is transmitted to the agency’s Clinical Support Team, composed of nurses, social workers, and community health workers, who review the caregivers’ observations and, if needed, conduct further evaluations of the clients and/or alert the appropriate primary care or specialty providers about their escalating health and social needs. The program’s outcomes: Decreased client utilization of Emergency Department visits and hospitalizations since brewing health concerns are addressed earlier on. Increased caregiver retention because caregivers feel like they are making a significant difference in the health and well-being of their clients.

Nine States Selected for Children’s Behavioral Health Policy Lab

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State behavioral health and children’s welfare agency officials from Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin selected to participate.

Health Management Associates (HMA), in partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Casey Family Programs, National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), and the National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD), will convene a Children’s Behavioral Health (CBH) State Policy Lab, February 7-9 in Baltimore. HMA today announced the selection of nine states – Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin – that will participate in the policy lab. MITRE, which previously hosted a related federal convening, will also take part in this state convening.

This pioneering effort, made possible by the partner organizations, aims to convene state interagency teams – including child welfare, juvenile justice, behavioral health, Medicaid, and K-12 public education – to collectively strategize, learn from innovators in the sector and promote cross-system alignment to drive outcomes for children, youth, and families.

COVID-19 has exacerbated long-standing system collaboration challenges across state child welfare, behavioral health, and Medicaid that lead to unsatisfactory outcomes for the most vulnerable children in our communities. Most worrisome is the worsening of behavioral and physical health challenges and trauma because of uncoordinated or fragmented care. This lack of coordinated strategy and policy leads to higher costs of treatment and also increasingly exposes states and local jurisdictions to threats or filings of class action lawsuits, and related settlements or those arising from Department of Justice investigations. Fortunately, federal and state efforts and investments to address the youth systems of care – including schools, community, delivery systems, and community-based child placing agencies – are in motion.

In November, a call for applications was released to U.S. states and territories for potential participation in the State Policy Lab. Applicants were required to identify demonstrated need, existing state agency governance structures focused on children and youth, technical assistance needs, and outcomes for attending the policy lab. The applications required demonstrated participation from Medicaid, child welfare and behavioral health agencies; a commitment to creating sustainable interagency solutions for children, youth, and their families and had to certify formal support of Governor/Cabinet level.

An external independent panel reviewed applications for state agency participation using a standardized rubric that covered four domains:

Gaps and opportunities analysis
Intent of collaborative partnerships
Approach to engagement of youth and adults with lived experience
Imminent risks to public agency operations as a result of poor outcomes for children, youth, and their families

This convening is aimed at assisting child welfare, juvenile justice, behavioral health, Medicaid, and K-12 public education where possible to build upon existing efforts to improve outcomes for children, youth, and families, strategically layering on missing components and promoting alignment between them and with other agency priorities. Examples of what could be co-designed with state partners:

Build a shared strategic vision for a comprehensive continuum of care that ensures access to the “right service, at the right time based on individual and family need.” This vision can strengthen prevention initiatives and ensure the full array of evidence-based community-based interventions including use of crisis response and stabilization models.
Develop policies and strategies for improving the engagement of children, youth, and families with lived experiences to the “right part of the system for the right level of care,” agnostic of the door through which they enter any coordinated child serving system, while ensuring that all aspects of this system are anchored in equity.

Following the event, learnings and findings will be disseminated to help states and counties adopt innovative solutions to improve outcomes for children, youth, and their families.

For more information email: [email protected]

CMS announces innovation in behavioral health model

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This week, our In Focus section highlights the Innovation in Behavioral Health (IBH) model, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced January 18, 2023. It is the third state-based alternative payment model that the CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Innovation Center) has released in recent months. HMA wrote about the Transforming Maternal Health (TMaH) Model and States Advancing All-Payer Health Equity Approaches and Development (AHEAD) Model.

IBH Model Overview

This model is designed to improve the quality of care and health outcomes for people with moderate to severe behavioral health conditions through person-centered care that integrates physical health, behavioral health, and health-related social needs (HRSN). Its objective is to improve care through healthcare integration, care management, health equity, and health information technology.

CMS will select up to eight state Medicaid agencies for participation in this eight-year model that will begin in fall 2024. Participating states must partner with the agencies that are responsible for mental health and/or substance use disorder treatment to ensure coordination and alignment of policies. Model participants will develop and implement the IBH model in partnership with at least one Medicaid managed care organization or another intermediary as applicable.

Community-based behavioral health organizations and providers in selected states can choose to engage as practice participants in the model. Community-based providers can include safety net providers, community mental health centers, public or private practices, and opioid treatment programs. Practice participants will be responsible for coordinating with other members of the care team to comprehensively address behavioral and physical health needs and HRSN, such as housing, food, and transportation for patients. Practice participants will conduct HRSN screenings, refer patients to specialists and community-based resources, and more. They will be compensated based on the quality of care provided and improved patient outcomes.

Opportunities and Considerations

The model will include three pre-implementation years during which states and practice participants will receive Medicaid and Medicare funding for development and capacity building. Medicare will provide practice participants with a per-beneficiary-per-month payment in pre-implementation years to support health IT, electronic health records (EHR), practice transformation, new workflows, and staffing investment necessary to implement the model. Starting in year four, the Medicaid alternative payment model must be implemented, and Medicare will begin making performance-based payments.

Notably, the announcement materials do not indicate the maximum funding amount selected state Medicaid agencies are eligible to receive in IBH. The cooperative agreement funding for selected states will support implementation preparations, such as statewide health IT infrastructure, supporting practice participants, stakeholder convening, and developing the Medicaid alternative payment model.

What’s Next

The Innovation Center expects to release a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) in spring 2024. More details on the requirements, including payment methodologies and funding, are expected to be included in the NOFO.

The HMA Behavioral Health and federal policy teams will continue to monitor developments in IBH and analyze the opportunities for states and providers in this model. HMA experts are also assessing the relative opportunities of the IBH model alongside other Innovation Center opportunities and initiatives already underway in states.

The core design elements and objectives of the IBH are illustrative of the issues that HMA’s experts and industry leaders plan to discuss at HMA’s Spring Workshop, The HMA Spring Workshop: Getting Real About Transforming Healthcare Quality and Value.

For more information on the IBH model, contact our experts below.

Devising a framework for non-profit fundraising

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Money is always “top-of-mind” among non-profit leaders, from CEO’s at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) to Executive Directors at Community-based Organizations. To supplement projects and retain the ability to further their missions, non-profit organizations (NPOs) need funding. When non-profits and funding sources are not well aligned, programs are cut, curtailed, or never launched. Assisting clients in pursuing alternative funding sources requires a creative yet methodical approach to promote success and boost organizational sustainability.

Devising a framework for non-profit funding presents challenges. Funding models/strategies cannot be too general nor too specific. There is not a single approach, a one size fits all model or sourcing strategy for non-profits to pursue. Instead, non-profit leaders must clearly articulate the funding model or strategy that best supports the growth of their organization and use that insight to examine the potential funding opportunities preeminently associated with organization-specific success. For example, a community health center serving patients covered by Medicaid and a non-profit organization doing development work in housing for the homeless are both funded by the federal government, yet the type of funding each receives and the decision makers controlling that funding are very different. Utilizing the same funding methodology for the two would not be productive. Fortunately, there are multiple methods and strategies to acquire funds. Non-profits should be strategic in seeking approaches suitable to their needs and capabilities and be creative in pursuing more than one model to acquire supplemental funds.

The core success of NPOs is based on a range of funding options, private grants and government grants, corporate sponsorships, private funding, endowments, and community fundraising. There is also a considerable amount of money available from the public sector, businesses, charitable trusts, foundations, in-kind donations, and local and state legislative bodies. The goal of any successful fundraising campaign is to convey fully what the money is or will be supporting and clearly articulate the projected positive outcomes that will be derived from the funding. Once the project is fully clarified, the next step is research. Many funding avenues exist. The NPO must decide which funding sources are best suited for each project and pursue those options.

When choosing potential funding sources, NPOs must consider the size of their organization, their mission, and various other defining characteristics. Once this internal due diligence is completed, revenue needs should be clarified, and a tactical fundraising strategy outlined. Creating a “ratio” with the end-result in mind allows for revenue diversification and avoids the too heavy reliance on one income source. For example, an NPO might project obtaining 50% of needed revenues from grants, 20% from a corporate sponsorship, and the remaining 30% from a foundation. Once the funding sources have been identified, the types of decision makers and the motivations of these decision makers must be evaluated. Then, a tactical roadmap designed to obtain the needed funding should be implemented.

As society looks to the non-profit sector to solve important problems, a realistic understanding of funding models is increasingly important to realizing these aspirations. As consultants whose mission is to turn challenges into triumph for our clients, championing efficacious, high-yielding funding models ensures long-term viability for the organizations we serve.

Success relies on planning. It is much better to be proactive than reactive. Consider your organization’s funding needs, do your research, and lay the groundwork before diving into any fundraising pursuit. An assessment of your organization’s current funding strategies is essential. What is working; what is not? Is the current funding source reflective of the organization’s mission and values? Use the answers to these questions to make decisions and recommendations on which fundraising strategies to source. Get creative! Brainstorm unconventional ways your organization will stand out to potential funders, but be analytical. Balance creativity with data, keeping in mind which funding strategy reflects the best return. Focus time and energy on the funding model that will be most reliable, profitable, and feasible.

The non-profit world rarely engages in a succinct conversation about an organization’s appropriate long-term funding strategy. That is because the different types of funding that fuel non-profits have never been clearly defined. More than a poverty of language, this represents and results in a poverty of understanding and clear thinking. As consultants, HMA can provide an outside perspective and sort through the minutia presenting a clear, methodical, appropriate path to fundraising success.

Potential links to aid in your fundraising endeavors:

HMA works with a wide variety of healthcare clients, including FQHCs, community-based organizations, hospitals, provider practices, behavioral health, and managed care organizations, and can help with:

Grant Writing
Technical Assistance
Strategic Planning
Financial planning, Implementation and Optimization

For more information about how HMA can help your organization’s grant and funding strategies, contact our experts below.

Health Management Associates Successfully Completes SOC 2 Type 2 Examination

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Health Management Associates (HMA), a leading independent, national healthcare consulting firm today announced that it has successfully completed a Service Organization Control Type 2 (SOC 2 Type 2) audit.

The SOC 2 Type 2 audit was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants to evaluate an organization’s information security controls over a period of time. It assessed both the suitability of HMA’s controls and its operating effectiveness, covering the HMA organization as a whole, service offerings, resources used to deliver client work, and technical (cybersecurity) and non-technical controls (administrative strengths such as excellent training and a culture that promotes anti-fraud and ethical behaviors).

“Increasingly, completing a SOC 2 Type 2 audit is an important distinction for many of our clients and partners,” said Doug Elwell, chief executive officer. “Achieving this with no material findings across the firm is yet another way to meet client needs and further demonstrates our commitment to our core values of accountability, client commitment and integrity.”

Founded in 1985, HMA is an independent, national research and consulting firm specializing in publicly funded healthcare and human services policy, programs, financing, and evaluation. Clients include government, public and private providers, health systems, health plans, community-based organizations, institutional investors, foundations, and associations. With offices in more than 30 locations across the country and over 700 multidisciplinary consultants coast to coast, HMA’s expertise, services, and team are always within client reach. Learn more about HMA at healthmanagement.com, or on LinkedIn and X.

HMA and partner organizations release brief to improve coordination of services for children in foster care and those with behavioral health needs

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This week, our In Focus section highlights the efforts of Health Management Associates (HMA) and partner organizations to better coordinate services for children in foster care and for children with behavioral health needs.

First, HMA released an issue brief on November 6, 2023, as part of a partnership between HMA and the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) Technical Assistance Coalition. Together HMA and NASMHPD experts wrote a series of five briefs on children’s behavioral health.

The brief released last month, “The Role of Specialized Managed Care,” written by HMA experts Heidi Arthur and Angela Bergefurd, with input from Caitlin Thomas-Henkel and Uma Ahluwalia, centered on the intersection of child welfare reform and behavioral health transformation. More specifically, it described how specialized Medicaid managed care plans can ensure better alignment between child welfare and behavioral healthcare services.

The paper emphasizes the role of state-level special needs plans (SNPs) in the delivery of coordinated care and examines the opportunities afforded to states seeking to leverage specialty managed care plans.

Specialized managed care plans can help fill the void by incentivizing the provision of services for children in foster care and specialty services for children with behavioral health needs. Plans in three states — Washington, Arizona, and Ohio — are highlighted, and can serve as examples of how state Medicaid SNPs can be implemented.

Link to Issue Brief

This paper is part of a larger effort that HMA and several partner organizations are supporting. Stakeholders include:

NASMHPD
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Casey Family Programs
MITRE
National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD)
Child Welfare League of America (CWLA)
Administration for Children and Families
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

The goal of these collaborations is to foster dialog between state agencies and stakeholders working to improve the well-being of children and youth with complex needs.

Most recently, HMA hosted a webinar on December 12, 2023, titled “Collaborating to improve children’s behavioral health – a comprehensive playbook to fostering wellbeing in children”. The webinar featured speakers from the partner organizations to discuss insights from a federal meeting that took place in November. Webinar speakers also informed participants about plans for a multistate policy lab scheduled for February 2024, where representatives of up to eight state child welfare agencies will participate in a two-day workshop on improving the children’s behavioral health continuum of care in their states. The webinar focused on the overall effort and provided a forum for states to hear from this partnership on the importance of collaborating to strengthen the children’s behavioral health system.

For questions about the brief, the webinar, or the larger effort, please contact our experts below.

Webinar replay: Collaborating to improve children’s behavioral health – a comprehensive playbook to fostering wellbeing in children

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This webinar was held on December 12, 2023.

Beyond the statistics lie the stories of countless children and families needing immediate and critical access to behavioral health services and community-based supports. Addressing these issues requires comprehensive cross-system reforms, including policies that promote integrated financing, enhanced care coordination, increased provider collaboration, and bolster upstream prevention efforts. HMA is working with these national partner organizations to prioritize and focus on cross system integrated and interoperable solutions to address the needs of children, youth, and families with complex behavioral health needs.

HMA hosted a webinar in partnership with the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD), Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), and with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Casey Family Programs and other funders. Together, these organizations have developed a multi-state policy lab to be held in February 2024. Applications for state agency participation opened the week of November 11th. State agency decision makers can click here to fill out and submit your state agency’s application. This webinar focused on the overall effort and for states to hear from this partnership on the importance of collaborating to strengthen the children’s behavioral health system.

If the link above to the online form causes problems or does not work for you, please use this fillable PDF application and send it to [email protected] with all relevant attachments. Applicants must submit the full application no later than 5 pm on December 20, 2023.

Key highlights of this webinar include:

Explaining the need to develop a collaborative multi-system response to meet the behavioral health needs of children, youth and their families
The opportunity for 8 state child serving agency teams to participate in the children’s behavioral health policy lab

Featured Speakers:

Julie Collins, MSW, LCSW, VP, Practice Excellence, CWLA
David Miller, M.P.Aff., Senior Operations & Project Director, NASMHPD
Sheila Poole, Vice President, External Relations, APHSA
Joe Ribsam, JD, Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Policy Director, AECF

CalAIM Justice-Involved Reentry Initiative Planning and Implementation Services

Organizations are facing extensive challenges to improve health outcomes and healthcare quality through broad delivery, payment, and program reforms in CalAIM. With proven expertise in CalAIM policy, operations, and implementation, Health Management Associates (HMA) can help you with identifying needs, developing a strategy, and implementing those plans. We actively support clients across California implementing the CalAIM Section 1115 Waiver Demonstration Justice-Involved Initiative. Our team of Medi-Cal, managed care, and correctional healthcare experts – including physical and behavioral health clinicians, healthcare administrators, and former correctional leaders – are uniquely positioned to help clients navigate this delivery system transformation.

California is the first state in the nation to receive approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide detained and sentenced individuals with 90-day pre-release healthcare services and behavioral health linkages. Through PATH JI grant funding, HMA is helping clients build administrative capacity, information technology, pre-release services, care management models, and Medi-Cal claiming infrastructure to meet their unique needs and leverage this significant opportunity. Our planning and implementation support spans the breadth of the CalAIM Justice-Involved Initiative including: the pre-release Medi-Cal application process, 90-day pre-release services, behavioral health links, Enhanced Care Management (ECM), and Community Supports services.

That’s why sheriffs’ departments, probation authorities, correctional health services agencies, behavioral health agencies, managed care plans, healthcare providers and community-based organizations see HMA as a trusted partner in helping to develop and implement 1115 waiver healthcare programs.

We provide:

Project management

State policy monitoring and compliance tracking

Current and future state process mapping

Partner and stakeholder collaboration and meeting facilitation

Process and quality improvement recommendations

Protocol development

Implementation plan and readiness assessment drafting

Training

Electronic health record recommendations

Contact our experts:

Julie White

Managing Director

With more than 25 years of experience in comprehensive healthcare and justice-related service delivery, Julie White has developed policy, strategic … Read more

State Policy and Practice Recommendations to Advance Improvements in Children’s Behavioral Health

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Health Management Associates (HMA) has partnered with the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) Technical Assistance Coalition to produce a series of briefs that characterize the opportunities to improve coordination of services for children.

In this brief, “State Policy and Practice Recommendations to Advance Improvements in Children’s Behavioral Health,” the HMA team of Caitlin Thomas-Henkel, Uma Ahluwalia, Heidi Arthur and Annalisa Baker, and Devon Schechinger address key issues and highlighted practice recommendations that are designed to bring forth systems change and raise awareness at the state level. This brief provides state policymakers and behavioral health leaders with a vision for coordinating and optimizing services to promote mental health well-being, prevent behavioral health conditions, and ensure access to a coordinated continuum of behavioral healthcare.

The Role of Specialized Managed Care in Addressing the Intersection of Child Welfare Reform and Behavioral Health Transformation

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“The Role of Specialized Manage Care,” written by HMA experts, Heidi Arthur, Angela Bergefurd, Caitlin Thomas-Henkel and Uma Ahluwalia, focuses on addressing the intersection of child welfare reform and health transformation. This issue brief explains how specialized Medicaid managed care plans can ensure better alignment between child welfare and behavioral healthcare services. The role of special needs plans for the delivery of coordinated care is emphasized and the opportunities to leverage specialty managed care plans by states are highlighted.

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198 Results found.

State teams convene to strengthen collaboration across child welfare, behavioral health, and Medicaid

Background

Child Behavioral Policy Lab

Key areas of focus

What’s Next

Federal policymakers consider current and future spending measures on simultaneous tracks

HMA white paper examines expanding home care value through innovative client and caregiving supports

Nine States Selected for Children’s Behavioral Health Policy Lab

State behavioral health and children’s welfare agency officials from Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin selected to participate.

CMS announces innovation in behavioral health model

Devising a framework for non-profit fundraising

Health Management Associates Successfully Completes SOC 2 Type 2 Examination

HMA and partner organizations release brief to improve coordination of services for children in foster care and those with behavioral health needs

Webinar replay: Collaborating to improve children’s behavioral health – a comprehensive playbook to fostering wellbeing in children

CalAIM Justice-Involved Reentry Initiative Planning and Implementation Services

Julie White

Managing Director

State Policy and Practice Recommendations to Advance Improvements in Children’s Behavioral Health

The Role of Specialized Managed Care in Addressing the Intersection of Child Welfare Reform and Behavioral Health Transformation

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Featured HMA insights:

More insights from our companies:

Insights

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198 Results found.

Background

Child Behavioral Policy Lab

Key areas of focus

What’s Next

State behavioral health and children’s welfare agency officials from Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin selected to participate.

Managing Director