Washington State One Of Eleven To Get CMS Emergency Psychiatric Demonstration Funding

 

Building on the national and state level momentum to integrate mental health care into traditional acute care payment models, CMS announced today that 11 states would receive $75 million in grant funding to support managing emergency psychiatric care into Medicaid payment streams.

The states that were awarded funds – Alabama, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Washington, and West Virginia – will receive these funds as “matching funds” over three years.

The CMS webpage for the project says the funds will allow private psychiatric hospitals, dubbed “institutions for mental disease (IMDs) to receive Medicaid reimbursement for adult acute emergency care, like suicidal gestures or tendencies.  Currently, Medicaid will only fund those services in an acute care hospital.

The Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Demonstration will test whether Medicaid reimbursement to treat psychiatric emergencies, described as suicidal or homicidal thoughts or gestures, in IMD settings will enable States to increase the quality of care for people experiencing mental illness at lower cost, and will also test whether such expanded coverage reduces the burden on general acute care hospital emergency departments.

A full program fact sheet can be found here.