Indiana is in the process of transitioning to a new model to deliver behavioral health and crisis services. But the top Family and Social Services Administration official says the agency is concerned about having the necessary funding.
Indiana’s Community Mental Health Centers are transitioning to what’s known as the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic model. The new model provides more comprehensive crisis response services 24/7.
The Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics are designed to ensure people can quickly access “coordinated comprehensive behavioral health care,” regardless of age, place of residence or ability to pay.
FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob said as of now, Indiana only has funding for the eight pilot sites.
“We need to figure out a way to rationalize that — to either bring everybody into a [Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic] model, or move back into a Community Mental Health Center model,” Roob said.
Zoe Frantz, president and CEO of the Indiana Council of Community Mental Health Centers, said she’s not particularly concerned about losing progress because the program has already shown an impressive return on investment.
“Our message has been: We have gone too far to go back,” Frantz said.
The goal is for the 16 other Community Mental Health Centers to become Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic by 2027. Frantz said the state already requested letters of intent from the additional Community Mental Health Centers and the sites have submitted their letters.
“That is a letter to say ‘We are interested. We are ready. We have the items we need to be a CCBHC in place.’ So that when the application comes down the providers can apply,” Frantz said.
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Frantz said there’s always the potential for Indiana to move away from the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic model, but the program has a lot of support from state and federal lawmakers.
"This was our legislators showing up and saying we wanted to address mental health," Frantz said. "We have in that legislative language that we will be CCBHCs come 2027 and that language has not yet changed, and so that direction from us has not yet changed either."
Frantz said partners across Indiana have put a lot of effort into this program.
"There's been so much from the state side and the provider side that has gone into this that I really see it would be really hard to go back," Frantz said.
Despite having an estimated $2.4 billion less than expected in the state budget forecast, state lawmakers did not decrease the amount of funding for the Community Mental Health Center fund. Frantz said providers advocated for additional funding, but they were glad to see the funding at least remain the same.
Frantz said support for the new model stems from lawmakers and officials' focus on Medicaid cost-cutting.
“One of those answers is through innovative programs such as CCBHCs,” Frantz said. “Doing it the old way that we've always done, hasn't had the same outcomes and hasn't had the same cost efficiencies. I believe this is one of the solutions that the FSSA team is looking at as possibly helping in the long term.”
Frantz said the program will save the state funding in the long run, and she doesn’t see the program going away based on the direction Indiana has been going.
She also said in order to show their intent to transition into the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic model, the health centers have to already provide the 24/7 crisis services. Frantz said that means most of the additional Community Mental Health Centers already function like Community Behavioral Health Clinics.
Abigail is our health reporter. Contact them at aruhman@wfyi.org or on Signal at IPBHealthRuhman.65.