BOX 1Suggestions from Individual Webinar Participants to Improve Access to Behavioral Health Care
Navigation and Support
Provide a navigator/case manager for all Medicaid beneficiaries at the beginning of a beneficiary’s mental health journey to help them understand the services they can receive (Dabney, Myrick, Van Tosh).
Establish care coordination programs in Medicare Advantage organizations (Jacobs).
Emphasizing Whole-Person Care
Mental health should not exist in isolation but should be part of achieving complete physical, mental, and social well-being (Myrick, Van Tosh).
Integrate behavioral health care into primary care (Adam, Jacobs, Ng, Robbins, Van Tosh).
Increasing and Supporting the Workforce
Expand the use of peers (including Family and Parent Peers), social workers, community health workers, marriage and family counselors, and mental health counselors (Browning, Butler, Jacobs, Marshall, Van Tosh).
Remove or reduce licensure and credentialing restrictions for behavioral health workers (Adam, Vermillion).
Reduce administrative burdens by improving the prior authorization, claim denial appeals, credentialing, and enrollment processes; eliminate the need to renew client Medicaid status; and cover a full menu of options that would provide clinicians with the flexibility to treat their patients (Adam, Browning, Cheevers, Ng, Patel, Stone).
Establish more community health clinics that accept Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries (Adam, Robbins).
Expand the use of telehealth (Jacobs, Robbins).
Payment Policies
Address the need to negotiate rates with each individual Medicare Advantage plan and then determine if a patient is eligible for care given his or her specific plan (Adam).
Increase reimbursement rates and harmonize reimbursement policies across Medicare, Medicaid, Marketplace, and managed care settings (Adam, Jefferies, Ng, Patel, Stone).
Establish payment parity for mental health and substance use services and physical health care (Cheevers, Hall, Jefferies).
Providing Addiction Treatment
Establish a better balance between regulation and flexibility to ensure there are enough clinicians to provide the care that individuals dealing with an addiction treatment need (Patel, Vermillion).
Medicare should allow for a provisional diagnosis and level of care that meets the American Society of Addiction Medicine recommendations so that an individual could access needed services quickly (Vermillion).
Promulgate standardized coverage requirements for addiction treatment (Jefferies).
Eliminate prior authorization requirements for medication-assisted therapy for substance use disorders (Cheevers).
Allow addiction counselors to enroll as Medicare providers (Jacobs).
DISCLAIMER: This list is the rapporteurs’ summary of points made by the individual speakers identified, and the statements have not been endorsed or verified by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. They are not intended to reflect a consensus among webinar participants.
