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Caring for Older Adults
We are now eight years into the “elder boom.” Sadly, the implications of this vast demographic shift are still not taken seriously. Yes, there is anxiety about sustaining Social Security and Medicare. And yes, there’s increasing talk about “healthy aging.” But even with these most obvious...
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The New Normal: How We Learned to Love and Understand Data
Data. The world today is all about data. With the transformation of the Medicaid payment system into a more value-based approach, the need for understanding data has taken a higher priority at many agencies, including ICL. Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) are making arrangements with agencies that...
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WellLife Network – A New Name and Strategy Reflects New Priorities and Directions for Leading Health & Human Services Agency
It’s a time of change, challenge and an opportunity for accomplishment. For individuals and families coping with a wide range of mental health, intellectual disabilities and drug addiction issues, human service agencies continue to seek viable solutions while facing new scrutiny from government...
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Systems Transformation in Progress: Promise and Pitfalls
A couple of months ago I attended a conference in Albany in order to learn of the latest developments in the state’s movement toward a “value based” healthcare delivery system. Monica Oss, Chief Executive Officer of Open Minds, a publication that explores the intricacies of behavioral...
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Progress and Challenges in Accessing Treatment for People with Autism
Debora Thivierge, BCaBA, CBAA, attended her son’s high school graduation last spring, and looked on with pride as he started college this fall. This rite of passage was not something doctors who diagnosed her son with autism 16 years ago would have encouraged her to strive for. It’s a sign of...
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From Neighboring Institutions to Collaborators: A Joint Effort to Improve Integrated Care
The integration of primary and behavioral health has become a major focus of healthcare restructuring across the country in the past several decades. New partnerships, emerging from a historically siloed system, share the triple aim of improving health status, containing costs and enhancing service...
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A New Face on Familiar Trends
Last year I attended a conference at which Dr. Michael Hogan, the former Commissioner of the New York State Office of Mental Health, delivered a keynote address on emerging issues and trends within health care reform. He distilled a seemingly inchoate mass of movements, mandates and initiatives...
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The Promise and Peril of Value Based Behavioral Health Care
By aligning payment with value, we can achieve the triple aim of better outcomes and better experience of the healthcare system at a lower cost IF we define value in terms of wellness, recovery and improved quality of life. In this case as with almost everything in our healthcare system today, the...
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Building a Quality Behavioral Health Workforce: Employing Service-User Perspectives Throughout Your Organization
With the introduction of Managed Behavioral Health Care in October of 2015 and the soon to be implemented Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), engagement of “peers” in the workforce has become a topic of considerable interest. HCBS introduces peer support as a Medicaid billable service...
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Effective Supervision: An Essential Component to Enhancing Consumer Outcomes
The behavioral healthcare industry is facing a monumental time of change. The mental health field in particular is faced with putting more responsibility on consumers to drive their own treatment. No longer, it seems, will a person with mental health challenges be cared for in a prescriptive, or...
