CEO Alliance for Mental Health Announces Rollout to Prepare for 988 Hotline Launch

The CEO Alliance for Mental Health this week announced the start of coordinated effort to help prepare state and municipal officials for the nationwide 988 behavioral crisis hotline that will launch on July 16.

NABH is a member of the CEO Alliance, a collaborative of 15 of the nation’s leading mental health professional organizations, advocacy groups, and funders that will push for leaders to adopt A Consensus Approach and Recommendations for the Creation of a Comprehensive Crisis Response System, a roadmap that outlines seven “pillars” for transforming mental health and substance use care in the United State. These are: early identification and prevention; emergency and crisis response; equity and inclusion; integration and partnership; fair and equivalent coverage; standards for care; and workforce capacity. The Alliance released the roadmap last November.

The Alliance’s outreach efforts leading to the 988 hotline launch this summer include a social media campaign intended to direct state and municipal elected officials, civic leaders, policymakers, and advocates to the roadmap.

In his State of the Union address earlier this month, President Biden announced his administration’s mental health strategy, of which the 988 hotline is a critical component.

Provider Relief Fund Reporting Period 2 Deadline is March 31

The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Provider Relief Fund (PRF) reporting portal remains open for healthcare providers who need to report their use of PRF funds in Reporting Period 2 (RP2) by the deadline on Thursday, March 31.

According to HRSA, providers who received one or more payments totaling greater than $10,000 in the aggregate during a Payment Received Period must use the funds by the deadline and report for each application reporting period.

HRSA’s announcement also said that providers who received PRF payments exceeding $10,000 in the aggregate between July 1, 2020 and Dec. 2020 and who do not submit a report on use of the funds by 11:59 p.m. ET on March 31, 2022 will be required to return all funds.

HRSA said it will not grant grace periods or extensions. Click here to read HRSA’s PRF Reporting Non-Compliance fact sheet.

SAMHSA Announces $25.6 Million in MAT Grant Programs

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) this week announced two grant programs totaling $25.6 million intended to expand access to medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder and prevent the misuse of prescription drugs.

One is the Strategic Prevention Framework for Prescription Drugs program, which provides funding for state agencies, territories, and tribal entities that have completed a Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant plan—or similar state plan—to target prescription drug misuse. This program is intended to raise awareness about the dangers of sharing medications, fake or counterfeit pills sold online, and over-prescribing. This grant will fund a total of $3 million over five years for up to six grantees. Applications for this grant are due by Monday, April 25.

The other is the Medication-Assisted Treatment-Prescribing Drug and Opioid Addiction grant program, which provides resources to help expand and improve access to medications for opioid use disorder. This program is intended to increase the number of individuals with opioid use disorder receiving medications for opioid use disorder and decrease illicit opioid use and prescription drug opioid misuse. This grant will fund a total of $22.6 million over five years for up to 30 grantees. According to SAMHSA, no less than $11 million will be awarded to Native American tribes, tribal organizations, or consortia. Applications for this program are due by Friday, April 29.
 
DOJ Announces ‘Second Chance Act Pay for Success Initiative’

The U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is seeking applications to fund state, local, and tribal governments to either enhance or implement performance-based programs that reduce recidivism and address substance use disorders (SUD) that affect people who have been incarcerated.

Specifically, the funds will be used in contracts with reentry, permanent supportive housing, or recovery housing providers in this effort. The Pay for Success Initiative is a performance-based and outcomes-based program that ties payment for services to reaching agreed-upon goals.

Click here for more information.

O’Neil Institute Releases ‘Maximizing the Impact of Opioid Litigation to Address the Overdose Crisis’

The O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center this week released Maximizing the Impact of Opioid Litigation to Address the Overdose Crisis, a five-page issue brief that describes the themes discussed during the Opioid Litigation Summit held at Georgetown Law Center in September 2021.

The resource emphasizes that opioid litigation settlement proceeds must be used to advance a public health response to the nation’s opioid crisis. It also explains how the country can learn from its own history in this regard.

“The tobacco litigation settlements of the 1990s evince the need for a comprehensive strategy of oversight and accountability to distribute and manage opioid litigation proceeds,” the issue brief states. “Despite the intent of the settling states’ Attorneys General that funds be used primarily for tobacco-related health initiatives, the lack of specificity in the settlement agreements led to less than 10% of the $206 billion award funding tobacco-related public health strategies.”

According to the brief, these five themes emerged from last year’s opioid litigation summit: intentional collaboration leads to actionable policy; community needs should be reflected when distributing proceeds; existing opioid-related funding should be supplemented, not supplanted; oversight should be sustained; and other sources of funding should be maximized and coordinated to create a comprehensive plan to address SUDs.

Senate HELP Committee to Host Mental Health Hearing Next Week

The Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee will examine how to improve federal mental health and SUD programs in a hearing next week.

Senators will hear from Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, Ph.D.; Joshua Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health; Carole Johnson, administrator at the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Nora Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Delphin-Rittmon addressed attendees at the 2021 NABH Annual Meeting last October.

The hearing, “Strengthening Federal Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Programs: Opportunities, Challenges, and Emerging Issues,” will be held Wednesday, March 23 at 10 a.m. ET.

National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week Starts Monday

National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week is from March 21-27, and The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) invites organizations to participate in the national observance meant to empower teens and young adults about making informed decisions about drugs, alcohol, and addiction.

NIDA has developed five steps to hosting a NDAFW event and created lesson plans and other materials for educators, counselors, and prevention specialists.

Please click here to learn how to register your organization’s event online.

Reminder: NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Open to Members

NABH’s Denial-of-Care Portal is available for members to provide information about their experiences with managed care organizations that impose barriers to care through insurance-claim denials.

This NABH member-only, survey-like tool allows users to add the name of a managed care organization, type of plan, level of care, type of care (mental health or substance use disorder), duration of approved treatment, duration of unapproved treatment, criteria used to deny a claim, and more.

The portal allows members to submit individual examples of claim denials or upload multiple entries via Excel. It also includes sections on appeals and physician participation. In time, the tool could be a valuable resource for the NABH team’s advocacy efforts.

Please e-mail Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.

Register Today for the 2022 Annual Meeting!

NABH will host its 2022 Annual Meeting—Shaping the Future of Behavioral Healthcare—from June 13-15 at the Mandarin Oriental Washington, DC.

Please remember to register for the meeting and reserve your hotel room today!

Fact of the Week

Telehealth represented less than 1% of outpatient care before the Covid-19 pandemic for both mental health and substance use and other concerns. At its pandemic peak, telehealth represented 40% of mental health and substance use outpatient visits and 11% of other visits (during the March- August 2020 period), according to research from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.

Provider Relief Fund Reporting Period 2 Deadline is March 31

The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Provider Relief Fund (PRF) reporting portal remains open for healthcare providers who need to report their use of PRF funds in Reporting Period 2 (RP2) by the deadline on Thursday, March 31.

According to HRSA, providers who received one or more payments totaling greater than $10,000 in the aggregate during a Payment Received Period must use the funds by the deadline and report for each application reporting period.

HRSA’s announcement also said that providers who received PRF payments exceeding $10,000 in the aggregate between July 1, 2020 and Dec. 2020 and who do not submit a report on use of the funds by 11:59 p.m. ET on March 31, 2022 will be required to return all funds.

HRSA said it will not grant grace periods or extensions. Click here to read HRSA’s PRF Reporting Non-Compliance fact sheet.

NABH Submits Comments to CMS about Network Adequacy in Medicare Advantage

NABH this week submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding the agency’s proposed rule about technical changes to the Medicare Advantage (MA) and Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit programs for the contract year 2023.

In a letter to CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, NABH described how MA plans can increase the number of behavioral healthcare providers and facilities in their networks and improve access to mental health and addiction treatment.

“Unfortunately, Medicare beneficiaries do not have adequate access to mental health and addiction treatment,” NABH’s noted. “According to a CMS Data Brief, ‘[b]eneficiaries with depression, regardless of age, were more likely to report having trouble getting healthcare, obtaining prescription medicines, and not seeing doctors than those without depression.’ In addition, Medicare ‘[b]eneficiaries with depression regardless of age, were more likely to report that they have no usual source of care due to high cost.’ These difficulties accessing behavioral healthcare undoubtedly result from MA plans disproportionately lacking in-network behavioral healthcare providers,” NABH’s letter continued. “A recent study found that MA networks included only 23% of psychiatrists in a county on average — lower than all other medical specialties. Not surprisingly, MA enrollees with depressive symptoms report more difficulty accessing needed treatment and rated their experience with the MA plans as worse than in traditional Medicare.”

NABH also provided a series of recommendations, such as establishing specific network adequacy standards for the full continuum of mental health and addiction treatment and requiring those standards be met prior to approval for participation in Medicare; requiring MA plans to demonstrate reimbursement rates for behavioral healthcare providers are comparable with rates for other similar healthcare services; and requiring MA plans to comply with parity requirements and use generally accepted standards of care for utilization management.

OSHA Launches Program to Protect Healthcare Workers at Facilities that Treat Covid-19 Patients

The U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has launched an initiative to protect healthcare workers who work in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities that treat or handle patients with Covid-19.

An announcement from OSHA said the goal is to expand its presence to ensure “continued mitigation to control the spread of Covid-19 and future variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus” and to protect the health and safety of healthcare workers.

OSHA also said it will initiate focused inspections to emphasize monitoring for current and future readiness to protect workers from Covid-19 and will conduct follow-up inspections at sites that previously received citations.

“OSHA intends to expand its presence in targeted high-hazard healthcare facilities during a three-month period from March 9, 2022 to June 9, 2022,” the announcement said. “Through this focused enforcement initiative, the agency will verify and assess hospital and skilled nursing care employers’ compliance actions taken, including their readiness to address any ongoing or future Covid-19 surges.” 

Congressional Addiction, Treatment, and Recovery Caucus to Host Webinar on Opioid Crisis  Next Week

The Congressional Addiction, Treatment, and Recovery Caucus will host a webinar titled “The Changing Landscape & New Challenges of the Opioid Epidemic” next Thursday, March 17 at 3 p.m. ET.

Presenters include award-winning actor Michael Keaton; Beau Kilmer, Ph.D., director of RAND’s Drug Policy Research Center; and Arnold Alier Martinez, Ed.D., NRP, director of the division of pre-hospital medicine research and overdose prevention at the South Carolina Department of Health and Environment Control.

Click here to register.

The Joint Commission to Host Webinar About Behavioral Health and Human Services Accreditation on March 22

The Joint Commission will host a complimentary webinar about behavioral health and human services accreditation on Tuesday, March 22 from 10 am. – 12:30 p.m. ET.

In a live executive training, the Joint Commission will address the process, cost, requirements, and resources for assistance and will also leave time for questions. The Joint Commission’s announcement also said attendees will leave with a free, 90-day trial of the Joint Commission’s requirements and a copy of the webinar’s slides.

Click here to register.

Register for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week: March 21-27, 2022

National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week is approaching, and The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) invites organizations to participate in the national observance meant to empower teens and young adults about making informed decisions about drugs, alcohol, and addiction.

NIDA has developed five steps to hosting a NDAFW event and created lesson plans and other materials for educators, counselors, and prevention specialists.

Please click here to learn how to register your organization’s event online.

Reminder: NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Open to Members

NABH’s Denial-of-Care Portal is available for members to provide information about their experiences with managed care organizations that impose barriers to care through insurance-claim denials.

NABH’s Managed Care Committee worked for more than a year to develop the Denial-of-Care Portal as a way to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard for parity or the effects on patients.

This NABH member-only, survey-like tool allows users to add the name of a managed care organization, type of plan, level of care, type of care (mental health or substance use disorder), duration of approved treatment, duration of unapproved treatment, criteria used to deny a claim, and more.

The portal allows members to submit individual examples of claim denials or upload multiple entries via Excel. It also includes sections on appeals and physician participation. In time, the tool could be a valuable resource for the NABH team’s advocacy efforts.

Please e-mail Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.

Advertise in the 2022 NABH Exhibitor and Sponsor Guide!

NABH will distribute the 2022 NABH Exhibitor and Sponsor Guide to all registrants at the Annual Meeting from June 13–15, 2022 at the Mandarin Oriental Washington, D.C. Be sure your organization is included in it!

All ads are due by April 19, 2022. Please click here for details about advertising options, requirements, payment, and more. NABH will also post the 2022 NABH Exhibitor and Sponsor Guide on the association’s website after the Annual Meeting.

If you haven’t done so yet, please register for the Annual Meeting and reserve your hotel room today!

Fact of the Week

Between April 2021 and October 2021, the highest rates of telehealth visits were among those with Medicaid (29.3%) and Medicare (27.4%), Black individuals (26.8%), and those earning less than $25,000 (26.7%), according to data from HHS’ Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.

For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.

HHS Secretary Becerra Launches National Tour to Strengthen Mental Health

U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra on Thursday kicked off the National Tour to Strengthen Mental Health as a way to hear directly from Americans about their behavioral health challenges and engage with local officials to strengthen the mental health and crisis care systems in the United States.

The move came two days after President Biden announced his administration’s strategy to address America’s mental health crisis during the president’s first State of the Union address. Part of a broader “unity agenda,” the strategy aims to strengthen system capacity, connect more Americans to care, and create healthy environments where the country’s health and social services infrastructure addresses mental health holistically and equitably.

“The pandemic has not only taken a physical toll on all of us, but also brought on greater behavioral health challenges for everyone,” Becerra said in an announcement. “From small towns to big cities, I’ll be traveling nationwide with members of my leadership team to meet with people who have been hit particularly hard and partnering with local leaders to find ways to save lives in our communities.”

In the coming months, Becerra will make announcements about new initiatives and resources from HHS, such as increasing the number of behavioral health professionals and community and behavioral health supporter workers in underserved and under-resourced communities, expanding pediatric mental healthcare access through telehealth services, and transitioning to the national 988 behavioral health crisis hotline that will begin operating in July.

New CDC Data Show U.S. Suicides Peaked in 2018

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week reported that after rising from 2000 to 2018, the age-adjusted suicide rate in the United States declined after peaking in 2018.

Suicide dropped to the 10^th leading cause of death from the 12^th leading cause in 2020, “due to the emergence of Covid–19 deaths and increases in deaths from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis,” the CDC reported in Suicide Mortality in the United States, 2000-2020.

The new findings also showed that suicide rates were three to four times higher for males compared with females from 2000 through 2020. And for females, firearm-related suicide recently replaced poisoning as the leading means of suicide.

CMS Publishes Report to Congress on Medicaid Managed Care Regulations

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a report to Congress that focuses on coverage of services received in Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMD) by managed care plans through states in lieu of services (ILOS) authority.

Required by the 21^st Century Cures Act, the report found that the majority of states that cover inpatient behavioral health treatments through risk-based managed care use the IMD ILOS authority, and that states primary rationale for using this authority is to increase access to behavioral health services.

Joint Commission Issues Statement on Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act

The Joint Commission recently released a statement after Congress passed the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act.

Passed in February, the legislation seeks to reduce and prevent suicide, burnout, and mental and behavioral health conditions among healthcare professionals. Lorna Breen was a physician who served as emergency room director at New York Presbyterian Hospital and died by suicide in April 2020 while on a break visiting family in Virginia.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has increased to a devastating degree with the amount of burnout and stress among physicians, nurses and other health care providers,” Ana Pujols McKee, M.D. said in the statement. Pujols McKee serves as The Joint Commission’s interim president and CEO, executive vice president, chief medical officer, and chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer. “While we share in the deep sadness of Dr. Breen’s death from across the health care community, it is not without hope for positive change,” Pujols McKee continued. “It is critical that we increase awareness and provide resources to support our nation’s health care providers as they continue to work tirelessly into the third year of the pandemic.”

The Joint Commission’s announcement said research has shown that clinicians fear seeking mental health treatment because of questions related to their mental health history.

Click here to read a statement from The Joint Commission about removing barriers to mental health for clinicians and other providers; here to read a “Quick Safety” on promoting psychosocial well-being of healthcare staff during a crisis; and here to read the organization’s sentinel alert regarding the well-being of healthcare staff.

The Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act is awaiting President Biden’s signature.

Register for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week: March 21-27, 2022

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) invites organizations to participate in National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week (NDAFW), a national health observance meant to empower teens and young adults about making informed decisions about drugs, alcohol, and addiction.

NIDA has developed five steps to hosting a NDAFW event and created lesson plans and other materials for educators, counselors, and prevention specialists.

Please click here to learn how to register your organization’s event online.

Reminder: NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Open to Members

NABH’s Denial-of-Care Portal is available for members to provide information about their experiences with managed care organizations that impose barriers to care through insurance-claim denials.

NABH’s Managed Care Committee worked for more than a year to develop the Denial-of-Care Portal as a way to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard for parity or the effects on patients.

This NABH member-only, survey-like tool allows users to add the name of a managed care organization, type of plan, level of care, type of care (mental health or substance use disorder), duration of approved treatment, duration of unapproved treatment, criteria used to deny a claim, and more.

The portal allows members to submit individual examples of claim denials or upload multiple entries via Excel. It also includes sections on appeals and physician participation. In time, the tool could be a valuable resource for the NABH team’s advocacy efforts.

Please e-mail Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.

Register Today for NABH’s 2022 Annual Meeting!

Please visit our Annual Meeting homepage to view the 2022 Annual Meeting At-A-Glance for preliminary meeting details, register for the meeting, and reserve a hotel room.

We hope to see you in Washington from June 13-15!

Fact of the Week

For the first time, Black Americans are dying from drug overdoses at a higher rate than white Americans, according to a new study in JAMA. The report suggests that the high potency of the illicit drug supply may be disproportionately harming racial and ethnic minoritized communities.

For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.

HHS Pays More Than $560 Million to Providers in PRF Phase 4 Distribution This Week

HHS on Thursday announced that the department’s Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is making more than $560 million in Provider Relief Fund (PRF) Phase 4 Distribution payments to more than 4,100 healthcare providers nationwide this week.

With this latest announcement, nearly $11.5 billion in PRF Phase 4 payments have now been distributed to more than 78,000 providers in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and five territories, according to HHS. This is in addition to HRSA’s distribution of American Rescue Plan Rural Payments totaling about $7.5 billion in funding to more than 44,000 providers since November 2021.

Click here to view a state-by-state breakdown of all Phase 4 distributions to date and here for a state-by-state breakdown of all American Rescue Plan Rural Payments to date. For more information about the PRF, click here.

Federal Judge in Texas Blocks Part of HHS’ Surprise Billing Rule

A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday struck down part of the Biden administration’s interpretation of a part of the federal law banning surprise medical bills.

Siding with the Texas Medical Association, Judge Jeremy Kernodle of the Eastern District of Texas struck down a narrow part of the surprising billing rule that outlines how to resolve payment disputes between payers and providers regarding out-of-network claims.

The ruling maintains the protections for patients against receiving bills for thousands of dollars in situations such as going to a hospital emergency room and later learning one of the physicians was not covered by the patient’s insurance.

Click here to read news coverage about the ruling.

Neuroscientist and Former NIMH Director Tom Insel’s Book ‘Healing’ Now Available

Healing: Our Path From Mental Illness To Mental Health, the new book by former National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Director Tom Insel, M.D., was released this week.

Insel, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who led the NIMH from 2002 to 2015, spoke with The New York Times about this new book, which highlights failures in our nation’s behavioral healthcare system, including ineffective delivery of care, gaps in community services, and a reliance on police and jails for crises services.

Insel—who addressed attendees at NABH’s Annual Meeting last year—said in the interview that he hopes his new book will sound an alarm for the country.

“I want to ring the bell to tell people that we can do so much better today,” Insel said in the interview, “and there is no excuse for allowing people with these brain disorders to languish on our streets like this and die at age 55, eating out of trash bins.”

Register for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week: March 21-27, 2022

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) invites organizations to participate in National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week (NDAFW), a national health observance meant to empower teens and young adults about making informed decisions about drugs, alcohol, and addiction.

NIDA has developed five steps to hosting a NDAFW event and created lesson plans and other materials for educators, counselors, and prevention specialists.

Please click here to learn how to register your organization’s event online.

Reminder: NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Open to Members

NABH’s Denial-of-Care Portal is available for members to provide information about their experiences with managed care organizations that impose barriers to care through insurance-claim denials.

NABH’s Managed Care Committee worked for more than a year to develop the Denial-of-Care Portal as a way to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard for parity or the effects on patients.

This NABH member-only, survey-like tool allows users to add the name of a managed care organization, type of plan, level of care, type of care (mental health or substance use disorder), duration of approved treatment, duration of unapproved treatment, criteria used to deny a claim, and more.

The portal allows members to submit individual examples of claim denials or upload multiple entries via Excel. It also includes sections on appeals and physician participation. In time, the tool could be a valuable resource for the NABH team’s advocacy efforts.

Please e-mail Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.

Register Today for NABH’s 2022 Annual Meeting!

Please visit our Annual Meeting homepage to view the 2022 Annual Meeting At-A-Glance for preliminary meeting details, register for the meeting, and reserve a hotel room.

We hope to see you in Washington from June 13-15!

Fact of the Week

Between 1990 and 2019, the global number of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYS) due to mental disorders increased to 125.3 million from 80.8 million, according to a recent study in the journal The Lancet.

For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.

Biden Administration Announces RFI on Access to Care for Medicaid and CHIP Enrollees

The Biden administration this week announced a request for information (RFI) in its effort to develop a comprehensive access strategy to ensure equitable access to healthcare for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beneficiaries.

According to the announcement, this strategy will require the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to use regulations, guidance, and other tools to apply a multi-faceted approach to reducing health disparities. The agency is seeking feedback on topics such as enrolling in and maintaining coverage, accessing healthcare services and supports, and ensuring adequate provider payment rates.

“With this RFI, we are taking a first step towards a broader perspective of what ‘access’ to Medicaid means,” Daniel Tsai, director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, said in an announcement. “Ensuring access to Medicaid includes addressing a range of barriers current and potential Medicaid beneficiaries may experience, from enrolling in Medicaid to maintaining coverage, to accessing care across both fee-for-service and managed care delivery systems,” Tsai continued. “Access must also cross physical healthcare, behavioral health, and home and community-based services.”

Click here to learn more about the process and how to provide information to CMS. The 60-day comment period opened Feb. 17.

White House Issues Proclamation for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week: Feb. 21-25

President Biden on Friday issued a proclamation that announced National Eating Disorders Awareness Week next week to build awareness around this serious behavioral health issue that has increased in recent years.

According to the announcement, nearly 1 in 10 Americans are expected to develop an eating disorder in their lifetime. Eating disorders include binge-eating, bulimia nervosa, and anorexia nervosa and can have serious or fatal consequences if left untreated.

Please remember to follow NABH on Twitter @NABHbehavioral and on Linkedin for social media posts during National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

ASAM Releases ASAM Criteria® Interview Guide

This week the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and the University of California, Los Angeles Integrated Substance Abuse Programs (UCLA ISAP) released a paper-based resource to support more consistent and effective implementation of The ASAM Criteria, a national framework for patient-centered, evidence-based addiction care.

The ASAM Criteria Assessment Interview Guide is the first publicly available, standardized version of The ASAM Criteria assessment. An announcement about the new resource said both ASAM and UCLA hope to increase both the quality and consistency of patient assessments and treatment recommendations.

Center for Rural Opioid Prevention, Treatment & Recovery to Host Contingency Management Webinar on March 2

The Center for Rural Opioid Prevention, Treatment & Recovery will host Introduction to Contingency Management—a webinar that highlights the intervention in which tangible incentives are provided in exchange for evidence of drug or alcohol abstinence—on Wednesday, March 2 at 4 p.m. ET.

Led by Michael McDonnell, Ph.D. and Sara Parent, ND, both of Washington State University, the webinar will be available on Zoom and will educate participants on how to describe contingency management; summarize evidence supporting contingency management as an intervention for stimulant use disorders; review guidelines for implementing contingency management; and formulate strategies for overcoming barriers to contingency management implementation.

Click here to register.

Register for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week: March 21-27, 2022

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) invites organizations to participate in National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week (NDAFW), a national health observance meant to empower teens and young adults about making informed decisions about drugs, alcohol, and addiction.

NIDA has developed five steps to hosting an NDAFW event and created lesson plans and other materials for educators, counselors, and prevention specialists.

Please click here to learn how to register your organization’s event online.

Action Alliance to Host Webinar About 988 Hotline Messaging Framework on March 22

The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention (Action Alliance) will release a 988 Messaging Framework next month to help people transition to the national 988 behavioral health crisis hotline that takes effect in July.

The hourlong webinar is free and will highlight how to use the resource in public messaging efforts. The Action Alliance will host the event on Tuesday, March 22 at 2 p.m. ET.

Click here to register.

Reminder: NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Open to Members

NABH’s Denial-of-Care Portal is available for members to provide information about their experiences with managed care organizations that impose barriers to care through insurance-claim denials.

NABH’s Managed Care Committee worked for more than a year to develop the Denial-of-Care Portal as a way to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard for parity or the effects on patients.

This NABH member-only, survey-like tool allows users to add the name of a managed care organization, type of plan, level of care, type of care (mental health or substance use disorder), duration of approved treatment, duration of unapproved treatment, criteria used to deny a claim, and more.

The portal allows members to submit individual examples of claim denials or upload multiple entries via Excel. It also includes sections on appeals and physician participation. In time, the tool could be a valuable resource for the NABH team’s advocacy efforts.

Please e-mail Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.

NABH 2022 Annual Meeting At-A-Glance Available Online

Registration is open for NABH’s 2022 Annual Meeting—Shaping the Future of Behavioral Healthcare—and this week NABH posted the meeting’s At-A-Glance online.

Please visit our Annual Meeting homepage to view the At-A-Glance for preliminary meeting details, register for the meeting, and reserve a hotel room.

We hope you join us from June 13-15 in Washington!

Fact of the Week

A new estimate from Forbes, the cost of America’s opioid crisis is now more than $1.3 trillion and rising.
 
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.

2022 NABH Annual Meeting Registration is Open!

NABH is pleased to announce that registration opened this week for the 2022 NABH Annual Meeting: Shaping the Future of Behavioral Healthcare.

Please join us from Monday, June 13 – Wednesday, June 15 at the Mandarin Oriental Washington, DC, and visit our Annual Meeting webpage to register for the meeting and reserve your hotel room.

We look forward to seeing you in Washington!

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD Testifies to Senate Panel About Youth Mental Health

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD offered four recommendations to address the nation’s growing youth mental health crisis when he testified before the influential Senate Finance Committee this week.

Speaking not only as the nation’s doctor, but also as someone who experienced bullying as a child, and as a parent, Murthy said there are number of longstanding, preventable factors that are driving feelings of loneliness and hopelessness among American youth.

“The recent ubiquity of technology platforms, especially social media platforms, has had harmful effects on many children,” Murthy said. “Though undoubtedly they serve as a benefit to the lives of many in important ways, these platforms have also exacerbated feelings of loneliness, futility, and low self-esteem for some youth,” he continued.

Murthy offered four recommendations to address the myriad youth mental health challenges in the United States: first, ensure that every child has access to high-quality, affordable, and culturally competent mental health care; next, focus on prevention, by investing in school and community-based programs that gave been shown to improve the mental health and emotional well-being of children at low cost and high benefit; third, better understand the impact that technology and social media have on mental health; and, finally, overcome stigma. For that last recommendation, Murthy said this area concerns both individual and community engagement, and it requires understanding the role we each have to play in overcoming stigma.

CDC, FDA Release Draft Guidance for Opioid Prescribing

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday released its anticipated draft guidance on opioid prescribing for acute pain, subacute pain, and chronic pain in adults.

The guidance includes recommendations on clinician-patient communication, improved safety and effectiveness, and reduction in risks of developing an opioid use disorder (OUD), overdose, and death. It also recommends periodic review of the state prescription drug monitoring program data, consideration for toxicology testing, caution when co-prescribing benzodiazepines, and arrangement of medication treatment for patients with OUD.

This clinical practice guideline provides recommendations and does not require mandatory compliance. Public comments on the recommendations are due April 11.

Also this week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released guidance to develop non-addictive alternatives to opioids for acute pain, in response to the statutory requirements of section 3001(b) of the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities (SUPPORT) Act. The FDA said it expects to address chronic pain in future guidance.

Comments on the FDA guidance are also due April 11.

Register for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week: March 21-27, 2022

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) invites organizations to participate in National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week (NDAFW), a national health observance meant to empower teens and young adults about making informed decisions about drugs, alcohol, and addiction.

NIDA has developed five steps to hosting a NDAFW event and created lesson plans and other materials for educators, counselors, and prevention specialists.

Please click here to learn how to register your organization’s event online.

Reminder: NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Open to Members

NABH’s Denial-of-Care Portal is available for members to provide information about their experiences with managed care organizations that impose barriers to care through insurance-claim denials.
NABH’s Managed Care Committee worked for more than a year to develop the Denial-of-Care Portal as a way to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard for parity or the effects on patients.

This NABH member-only, survey-like tool allows users to add the name of a managed care organization, type of plan, level of care, type of care (mental health or substance use disorder), duration of approved treatment, duration of unapproved treatment, criteria used to deny a claim, and more.

The portal allows members to submit individual examples of claim denials or upload multiple entries via Excel. It also includes sections on appeals and physician participation. In time, the tool could be a valuable resource for the NABH team’s advocacy efforts.

Please e-mail Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.

Fact of the Week

Beyond nursing home care, members of racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to reside in areas that suffer from physician shortages, including shortages of primary care doctors, surgeons, and mental health providers, which is also a product of structural racism. Learn more in the February 2022 edition of Health Affairs, a theme issue devoted to system racism and its effects on health.

For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.

Federal Lawmakers Examine U.S. Mental Health Crisis in Committee Hearings

The influential Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) and House Ways and Means Committees learned about the nation’s persistent mental health and substance use crises in separate hearings on Capitol Hill this week.

On Tuesday, senators heard from five expert witnesses, including Mitch Prinstein, Ph.D., chief science officer at the American Psychological Association; Michelle Durham, M.D., M.P.H., vice chair of education in the psychiatry department and clinical associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Boston Medical Center, Boston University School of Medicine; and Sara Goldsby, M.S.W., M.P.H., director of South Carolina’s Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services.

Senate HELP Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) acknowledged that the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the country’s existing mental health and substance use crises and emphasized more than once that the behavioral healthcare workforce is stretched too thin. Murray also said it’s time to increase access to behavioral healthcare services.

“If we’re going to respond to the behavioral health issues the pandemic has made worse … that will take legislative action,” Murray said.

In a hearing the following day, members of the House Ways and Means Committee heard from experts representing UConn Health, the Legal Action Center, and the North Carolina Division on Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services.

The Senate Finance Committee will host a hearing on protecting youth mental health on Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. ET. Click here to watch the hearing next week.

CMS Releases Reminder About ‘Extraordinary Circumstance’ Exception to Quality Data Reporting

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a notice to remind healthcare providers that CMS offers a process for hospitals or facilities to request exceptions to the reporting of quality data, including data for electronic clinical quality measures, for one or more quarters when providers experience an extraordinary circumstance beyond their control.

Click here to read the announcement, which also includes information about performance-related extraordinary circumstance exception requests and promoting interoperability hardship requests.

Satcher Health Leadership Institute Adds ‘Behavioral Health’ Category and Indicators to Health Equity Tracker

The Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI) has expanded its Health Equity Tracker (HET) outcomes to include a “behavioral health” category and six corresponding indicators.

Named for David Satcher, M.D., the nation’s 16^th U.S. surgeon general, the SHLI works to transform health equity through policy, leadership development, and research as it focuses on three priority areas: the political determinants of health, health system transformation, and mental and behavioral health.

The six indicators for the new behavioral health category include: frequent mental distress, depression, suicide, illicit opioid use, non-medical drug use, and alcohol use (excessive drinking).

Click here to learn more.

National Academy of Medicine Releases Discussion Proceedings for Stigma of Addiction Summit

The National Academy of Medicine has released the discussion proceedings of the Stigma of Addiction Summit that the Academy held last summer.

The summit’s six sessions cover topics including how stigma presents itself and interventions to prevent it. The new publication also outlines priorities to guide future actions.

Register Today for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week: March 21-27, 2022

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) invites organizations to participate in National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week (NDAFW), a national health observance meant to empower teens and young adults about making informed decisions about drugs, alcohol, and addiction.

NIDA has developed five steps to hosting an NDAFW event and created lesson plans and other materials for educators, counselors, and prevention specialists. Click here to learn how to register your organization’s event online.

Reminder: NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Open to Members

NABH’s Denial-of-Care Portal is available for members to provide information about their experiences with managed care organizations that impose barriers to care through insurance-claim denials.
NABH’s Managed Care Committee worked for more than a year to develop the Denial-of-Care Portal as a way to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard for parity or the effects on patients.

This NABH member-only, survey-like tool allows users to add the name of a managed care organization, type of plan, level of care, type of care (mental health or substance use disorder), duration of approved treatment, duration of unapproved treatment, criteria used to deny a claim, and more.

The portal allows members to submit individual examples of claim denials or upload multiple entries via Excel. It also includes sections on appeals and physician participation. In time, the tool could be a valuable resource for the NABH team’s advocacy efforts.

Please e-mail Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.

Fact of the Week

U.S. universities are developing creative ways to provide mental health resources on their campuses. For example, the University of California-Davis embeds counselors in student groups such as the Cross-Cultural Center and the LGBTQIA Resource Center, while Stanford University’s Bridge Peer Counseling Center offers anonymous counseling 24/7 to students who are more comfortable speaking with a trained fellow student.

For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.