Wednesday, January 15, 2025
1/15/2025
Heritage Behavioral Health is located in Decatur, IL, an area designated as a mental health and primary care Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA). We serve nearly 6,000 children, youth, and adults annually in our behavioral care programs. CCBHC funding will allow us to expand primary healthcare services and provide comprehensive community-based services to treat the most serious behavioral disorders and integrate that treatment into whole-person care. Heritage will provide our CCBHC clients with a) crisis and outreach services; b) screening, assessment, and diagnosis; and c) outpatient treatment, family/peer support, and case management. Our region has barriers to treatment access, including transportation, and other service disparities commonly faced by rural communities. Few primary care physicians take self-referring Medicaid, leading to the inappropriate use of emergency department services in the area. Heritage and Crossing Healthcare are the only providers that have a sliding fee or take uninsured patients. The US Census data and nationally published prevalence data indicate that 1,612 young people in the area will experience first episode psychosis or bipolar disorder each year, that 1,122 have a co-occurring substance use condition, and that 6,844 youth and adults need substance use treatment but are not currently receiving it. The project will intensively serve up to 500 unduplicated residents over the entire grant project (125 in Year 1, 375 in Year 2), including 25 children and 10 veterans. In addition to expanding primary care services, the CCBHC project will help us improve our data systems, significantly enhancing client-level and program-level outcome and quality care monitoring and allowing us to track CCBHC-required metrics. The project goals are to 1) meet all CCCHC requirements by Month 4 of the award period (most infrastructure is already in place); 2) expand current client access to primary care by integrating primary care into existing behavioral health services for all clients; 3) improve client engagement in treatment and medication compliance; 4) expand capacity of the existing EHR to support integrated care delivery and clinical quality measure reporting; 5) build current workforce capacity to implement evidence-based practices; 6) increase community awareness around behavioral health; 7) decrease the prevalence of elevated, at-risk health indicator scores, including, for example, systolic/diastolic blood pressure, LDLs, triglycerides, and BMI; 8) demonstrate decrease in unnecessary ED and hospital utilization; and 9) develop a board-approved CCBHC sustainability plan.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).