New Frontier, CCBHC Expansion in Rural Appalachia - The "New Frontier, CCBHC Expansion in Rural Appalachia" project will focus on treatment of adults with serious mental illness, serious substance use disorders, or co-occurring disorders, and children with serious emotional disturbance within Frontier Health's rural service area of 11 Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia counties. Grant funds will help expand Frontier's ability to meet the ever-growing demand for behavioral health services in a region experiencing some of the worst behavioral and physical health outcomes in the nation. We propose to use CCBHC grant funds to help provide enhanced services to more than 17,000 individuals within the target population through our twin goals:
- Decrease hospitalization rates, opioid overdose deaths, and suicides by increasing capacity for treatment of SMI, SED, and SUD to under- and uninsured individuals, and
- Through a community-based approach, expand capacity to provide quality, integrated care to improve both behavioral and physical health outcomes for individuals with SUD, SED, and SMI. On our journey towards meeting these goals, Frontier plans to expand access to treatment in some of our most remote communities by increasing behavioral health staff in our Johnson County office, through development of home-based telemedicine solutions, and through creation of an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team that will provide in-person treatment directly to especially vulnerable clients within their own homes. Other improvements will come from adding more than 30 staff across the company within the next two years to help reduce staffing shortages, and from a focus on expanding training and use of Evidence-Based Treatments. This project will expand one of Tennessee's only children's 24-hour crisis walk-in clinics and will double our capacity to provide high demand services like Crisis Stabilization, detox, and residential SUD treatment. Along with improving access to care, we are also looking towards the future of healthcare as we plan to offer more integrated health opportunities through placement of behavioral health staff within primary care practices in our area and to lead the way in meaningful use of Health Information Exchange. Another population who will receive special attention are clients who are veterans or active members of the United States Armed Forces. Targeted outreach to veterans in need will be added to ensure care is available when needed, and preference will be given to veterans and active service members as our ACT program begins providing care.
