CMS made three big announcements yesterday, drawing attention to ways Medicaid and CHIP can support children’s health and well-being. The first two announcements are sub-regulatory guidance documents, essentially bringing together all of the existing state options and best practices on behavioral health and school-based health. Sub-regulatory guidance doesn’t include new policy, but rather aims to […]
Last month, the new three-digit mental health crisis and suicide prevention number – 988 – went live for call, text, and chat. Established by the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2020, this easy to remember number is meant to support people experiencing suicidal ideation, mental health and substance use crises, or any kind of […]
This week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released an update to its Medicaid and CHIP COVID-19 data snapshot with new data through January 2022. Unfortunately, as highlighted in the snapshot, while the number of mental health services provided to adults during the public health emergency nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels, the rate […]
[Editor’s Note: The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act has since passed the Senate and the House and was signed into law by the President on Saturday, June 25th.] As we wrote about last week, the Senate has been actively working to advance an agreement on a gun safety bill that includes a number of provisions related to mental health. […]
This week has been a busy one on Capitol Hill as it relates to congressional efforts on mental health. On Sunday, a bipartisan group of twenty Senators announced they had reached an agreement on a framework related to gun safety including investments in child and family mental health services. On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee […]
As Mental Health Awareness Month comes to an end, last week, leaders from six agencies across the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a joint letter calling on states, tribes, and jurisdictions to support children’s mental health and well-being by coordinating the use of federal funds, including mental health care covered by […]
