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Protecting Trust, Enabling Care: The Balance of Behavioral Health AI Policy
AI is no longer a future consideration for behavioral health providers, with a recent report highlighting that clinicians' adoption of these tools is outpacing nearly all recent health technologies. It is being used to support everything from documentation, session preparation, and scheduling to...
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The Recovery Industry’s Policies Are Killing People and They Won’t Change Unless We Make Them
The first time I watched the recovery system harm someone in real time, it was not a mistake. It was merciful advice in the face of restrictive policy. This person described how he voluntarily walked into a rehab facility after his last binge. He was not intoxicated. He was scared, exhausted,...
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Medicaid Is Reshaping ABA Care: Providers Are Caught in the Middle
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) providers are entering a new phase of scrutiny, and the shift is happening faster than many expected. Across the country, federal audits are uncovering widespread documentation and billing issues in Medicaid-funded ABA services. At the same time, states are...
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The Policy Landscape of Overdose Prevention Centers and the Path Forward
Key Takeaways: Overdose Prevention Centers (OPCs) are harm reduction facilities that provide many addiction services including medical supervision for those using pre-obtained drugs OPCs have consistently shown that they dramatically reduce overdose mortality and the spread of communicable...
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Closing the Gap Between Care and Outcomes in Behavioral Health Policy
As behavioral health expands access and continues to trend toward more parity with physical health, the focus is moving from just counting how many people get care to asking whether that care is actually improving lives. How behavioral health organizations consistently and clearly answer that...
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Progress Over Perfection—Why Behavioral Health Policy Momentum Must Translate Into Action Now
For too many people seeking behavioral health support, the first step toward care can feel like a dead end. A referral that leads nowhere. A waitlist that stretches for months. A new provider who asks them to recount their story again and again, each retelling reopening wounds at the very moment...
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How Cities Can Follow Oklahoma City’s Example to Address Residents’ Mental Health Needs Through Coordinated Emergency Response
Over the past three years, Oklahoma City has reimagined its emergency response system to better meet residents' behavioral health needs. The results are already impressive: the city's new alternative response teams have kept thousands of people out of the emergency room and drastically reduced...
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Advocacy Through Data: Making the Case for Community Behavioral Health Under Value-Based Payment
Most behavioral health policy arguments still run on stories. A person who was in and out of the hospital for years, then found a community program, got stable, went back to work. The stories are true and they matter. But a recovery story does not hold up well in a budget hearing or a payer...
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Showing Up Matters: The Power of Relationship-Based Advocacy in Behavioral Health
Behavioral Health Advocates: Association for Community Living, Coalition of Medication-Assisted Treatment Providers and Advocates of New York State (COMPA), Families Together in New York State, InUnity Alliance, Mental Health Association in New York State, National Alliance on Mental Illness New...
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When Opioid Narratives Become Policy
For more than a decade, US opioid policy has been guided by a compelling but incomplete story: aggressive pharmaceutical marketing and overprescribing by physicians flooded communities with addictive pills, igniting an epidemic of opioid use disorder (OUD) and death. This narrative drove sweeping...
