Human Services and Behavioral Health Integration: A Model for Whole-Person Medicaid Managed Care.

A comprehensive, whole-person approach to individuals' health care can be achieved by aligning, integrating, and coordinating health services with other human services. HealthChoices, Pennsylvania's managed Medicaid program, delegates responsibility for Medicaid-funded behavioral health service management to individual counties or multicounty collaboratives. County administrators' programmatic and fiscal oversight of Medicaid-funded services allows them to create synergies between behavioral health and other human service delivery systems and to set priorities on the basis of local needs.

Care Management Intervention to Address Determinants of Health for Individuals With Multiple Behavioral Health Readmission.

Purpose Of Study: To examine the effectiveness of a care management intervention to decrease readmissions and to better understand clinical and social determinants associated with readmission.

Primary Practice Setting: Inpatient mental health (MH) and substance use disorder (SUD) facilities, nonhospital SUD withdrawal management and rehabilitation facilities.

Methodology And Sample: The authors identified 3,950 Medicaid-enrolled individuals who received the intervention from licensed clinical staff of a behavioral health managed care organization; 2,182 individuals were eligible but did not receive the intervention, for treatment as usual (TAU).

Increased likelihood of psychiatric readmission with Medicaid expansion vs legacy coverage.

Objectives: To compare patterns of psychiatric hospitalization and readmission within 30 days for Medicaid expansion (expansion) vs previously insured (legacy) samples.

Study Design: Retrospective analysis using Medicaid behavioral health service claims.

Methods: We identified 24,044 individuals with hospitalizations in calendar years 2017 and 2018 within the network of a behavioral health managed care organization in Pennsylvania.

Payer-Provider Partnership to Identify Successful Retention Strategies for the Behavioral Health Workforce.

Background: High staff turnover rates are a burden for behavioral health providers because they may negatively impact staff morale, quality of care, and clinical outcomes as well as increase costs. The Staff Assessment and Retention (STAR) Project is a partnership between a behavioral health managed care organization and community-based providers designed to: 1) share information on research-based approaches, 2) identify strategies that providers find successful yet feasible, and 3) develop a learning community around research-based, community-informed strategies to increase staff retention.

Methods: Participants from 87 community-based behavioral health providers completed a survey about successful strategies and barriers to staff retention, current retention and turnover rates, and ratings of commonly used strategies supported by research.

Value of psychiatric rehabilitation in a behavioral health medicaid managed care system.

Objective: The present study was designed to describe individuals receiving psychiatric rehabilitation (PR) service and investigate program outcomes and factors associated with progress in a multisite, descriptive evaluation across Pennsylvania.

Method: Through an outcomes-monitoring process integrated into routine service delivery, survey responses from 408 individuals participating in PR were summarized. Linear mixed models were used to examine change over time in self-reported progress ratings in rehabilitation domains and factors associated with progress.

In managed behavioral health care, a seat at the table is not enough.

Topic: The involvement of individuals in recovery and their families has helped drive change in the behavioral health field. Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) can promote meaningful involvement by empowering stakeholders at every level of the organization.

Purposes: Roles for self-identified service recipients, including membership on boards, advisory committees, and grievance committees; in research and evaluation; in employment at all levels of the MCO; and in individual interactions with providers--as well as the impact of this involvement on individuals and the organization--is explored.