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The NYSPA Report: Momentum Building for Comprehensive Mental Health Reform in Congress
More than three years after the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School sparked a national conversation on issues related to mental illness and the prevention of violence to self and others, Congress is currently closer than any point in recent history to act on bipartisan, bicameral...
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The NYSPA Report: Community Based Extended Inpatient Care
A cohort of persons with serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI) will continue to require extended inpatient psychiatric treatment beyond 2015, the year during which NYS will enroll virtually all of its Medicaid insured into managed care. Where their care will be provided remains to be...
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The NYSPA Report: The Final Parity Rule – What NYS Should Do About It
On November 21, 2013, five years after the passage of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA), the federal Departments of the Treasury, Labor and Health and Human Resources issued the final rule governing its implementation. Due to the...
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Healthcare Reform: The New School Lunchroom
What does the new healthcare environment have in common with a high school lunchroom? Many Behavioral Healthcare providers have been experiencing anxiety as they hear and read about all the fundamental ways their work, organizations, and very lives are about to transform. “It’s all going to...
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The NYSPA Report – The Safe Act: A New Reporting Requirement for Mental Health Professionals
The Secure Ammunition and Firearms Security (SAFE) Act, signed into law by Governor Cuomo on January 15, 2013, is a gun control statute that substantially strengthens rules governing access to firearms and ammunition. The law also imposes a new mandatory reporting requirement on health care...
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The Importance of Public Policy Advocacy for People in Recovery
There is a quote I often think of when considering the importance of being at the table where decisions are made. Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa once said, “If you are not at the table, you are on the menu.” I believe this is especially true for decisions made in regard to policies affecting...
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Recovery-Oriented Practice and Health Care Reform
One common criticism of the concept of recovery is that, while it has offered a hopeful—even inspiring—vision for persons with mental illnesses and their loved ones, it has not provided concrete guidance for how mental health care needs to change in order to be more effective in promoting it....
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Supreme Court Decision Benefits People with Mental Illness
It is good news for people with mental illness and their families that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is constitutional. The benefits would have been greater if the court had not made expansion of Medicaid eligibility optional for the states. But even if some states...
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Riding the Wave of Health Care Reform
Addictions and risky use of addictive substances constitute one of the largest and most costly public health issues facing the nation, but addiction care has been vastly under-resourced and remains largely separate from mainstream medical and behavioral health care practice. Unrecognized and...
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The NYSPA Report: The Need for an “Essential Health Benefits” Federal Floor
Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March 2010, health policy experts and health lawyers have been working around the clock to comprehend and respond to an unprecedented number of proposed and final regulations. Noticeably absent from a myriad of federal rules that have been...
