May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And with Medicaid (alongside the Children’s Health Insurance Program) serving as the largest payer of behavioral health services and covering more than half of all children in the US, you can’t talk about mental health without also talking about Medicaid and CHIP.

In March 2024, President Biden signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, which included a number of Medicaid and CHIP provisions related to mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) care and coverage including policies impacting adults and youth. This includes:

• provisions extending and expanding policies from the 2018 Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act (SUPPORT Act),
• new provisions related to mental health and SUD services, and
• other provisions that support mental health and SUD coverage and care.

The brief provides background on the Medicaid and CHIP mental health and SUD provisions included in the 2024 government funding package along with explanations and a timeline for implementation.

View the Brief Here