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Mental‑health providers plead for higher rates, arguing centers are underpaid and losing clinicians
Summary
Community mental‑health providers, advocacy groups and behavioral‑health associations urged the committee to raise outpatient behavioral‑health rates, require higher reimbursements to licensed mental‑health centers and institute regular rate reviews to stop clinic closures and long wait lists.
Boston — Dozens of community behavioral‑health providers and advocacy organizations testified that licensed mental‑health centers are chronically underfunded and urged the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing to support bills that increase outpatient behavioral‑health reimbursement and establish a higher minimum rate for licensed mental‑health centers.
Lydia Conley, president and CEO of the Association for Behavioral Health (ABH), described S 8 74 / H 13 96 as an effort to address decades of underfunding by requiring a 5% increase in minimum payment rates for outpatient behavioral‑health services and a rule that rates for services delivered by licensed…
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