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The NYSPA Report: Taking Stock and Taking Leave
Advocacy must be unending, ongoing work because there is always more to accomplish and always the danger that hard-won gains may be undone. For the past 14 years I have either written or edited the work of guest columnists for the quarterly NYSPA Report in Behavioral Health News (BHN) or in Mental...
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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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CCBHC as a Roadmap for Behavioral Health Leadership and Participation within Accountable Delivery Systems
Uncertainty about the future state of publicly-funded health care is widespread following the presidential election. However, the design of accountable delivery systems committed to comprehensive, cost effective care continues to have bipartisan support. Such systems demand a full array of health,...
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Driving System Success During Times of Change
The adult New York State Behavioral Health System recently transitioned to Medicaid Managed Care. While everyone would acknowledge initial challenges and ongoing issues to be resolved, overall, the transition has been successful. This article will highlight the positive aspects of the...
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Fight Against Threats to Behavioral Heath Funding
The Trump presidency and Republican control of the Congress may do great damage to the already inadequate American mental health system by repealing the Affordable Care Act, eliminating Medicaid as an entitlement, privatizing Medicare, and limiting the authority of the states to regulate health...
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Supporting Youths in Their Recovery Journey to Adulthood
The New York State children’s behavioral health community is in the last stages of redesigning the children’s behavioral health Medicaid benefits. Once approved by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), the new benefits will represent the most significant expansion of children’s...
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Are We There Yet? Reflections on the 5 Years of Children’s Medicaid Transformation
It is hard to believe that five years have passed since the New York State Children’s MRT Subcommittee released its blueprint to address the unique and complex needs of children in Medicaid Managed Care. In many ways the time has flown by yet today, New York State’s target date to fully...
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The System-of-Care Movement Through a Trauma-Informed Lens: Implications for Systems Transformation
Trying to change systems is never an easy task. Efforts to encourage, argue, incentivize, and mandate change, are often met with piecemeal results, only to revert back to business as usual. On rare occasions however, profound change can happen quickly and even effortlessly. These changes often...
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SIMHS SafeTY.net Early Intervention Program Fills Gaps in Services for Staten Island Youth Battling Trauma-Related Substance Use/Abuse
For more than a decade, Staten Island has been harboring a shameful secret that is only recently coming to light. Our Island outranks each borough, as well as the whole of New York City and State, in the rate of adolescent drug and alcohol abuse, including binge drinking and use of prescription...
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Improving Children’s Health by Focusing on Value
New York State is well down the path to instituting significant changes in how the State pays for health care for low-income and disabled individuals, many of them children. Like many other states, New York is testing new payment methodologies in an effort to achieve positive changes in how health...
