Thursday, November 21, 2024
11/21/2024
The New Mexico Certified Behavioral health Clinics planning grant initiative (NMCCBHC) will improve the behavioral health of its citizens living in rural and urban areas by providing community-based mental health and substance use treatment, advancing to the next stage of integration with physical health care, assimilating and utilizing Evidence Based Practices (EBPs) on a more consistent basis, and providing improved access to high quality care. NMCCBHC will serve adults with SMI, children with SED, and those with long term and serious substance use disorders (SUDS), as well as others with mental illness and substance abuse. In essence, this includes American Indians and Hispanic populations. In 2021, 31.9% of adults in NM reported symptoms of anxiety and/or disorder. In 2018-2019 21.4% of adults in NM reported at least one mental illness, while nationally it was 19.9% (USCB HPS, 2021). Suicide rate of 24.2 or 100,000 individuals (CDC 2020). Substance use disorder (SUD) causes serious negative effects on emotional and behavioral aspects on the inception of the family resulting in poor outcomes for the children and adults (Lander et al,2013). Since 1997, alcohol-related death rate in NM has been the highest among all the states in the UB (NM DOH, 2019). From 1990-2020, over 43,000 of NM's citizens died from drug overdose or alcohol related causes. The deaths reached highest in a single year in 2020 when NM reported 766 deaths due to drug overdose and 1,770 form alcohol related causes (NM LFC,2021) The prevalence of alcohol or drug dependence for most age groups is considerably higher that the national average (6.5% in NM vs. 4.8% Nationally). The six pilot sites for the NMCCBHC initiative are Eddy County (rural), Curry County (rural), Dona Ana County (rural and urban) Sandoval County (rural and urban), Santa Fe County (urban), Bernalillo County (urban). Prevalence rates for SMI and SED in all sites are comparable with the state. Since this is a planning grant, the number of persons served will be all persons who obtain behavioral health services in these sites. The NMCCBHC planning grant will help ensure services are expanded to include the array of services required toward certification. Expansion of services will be based on a needs assessment to determine capacity, access, and availability of services in the community. NMCCBHC will create a flexible payment and reimbursement plan so that no consumers are denied behavioral health services because of their inability to pay or because of place of residence, homelessness, or lack of permanent residence. The majority or these services are currently in place so efforts will be made to expand services that are limited and to certify a minimum of 2 agencies as CCBHCs within the grant year. Staff training will also be a majority priority with CCBHC project staff assisting clinics with meeting certification standards by expansion of behavioral health services. Performance assessment will be conducted to ensure successful accomplishments of the above certification related objectives, as well as process evaluation and collection of infrastructure outcome measures to determine any needed ways to alter or improve certification process and full preparation for sites to serve as CCBHCs for the Demonstration Project and beyond.
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).
