San Diego County supervisors approve measures to expand behavioral health capacity, workforce and revise LPS guidelines

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego County Board of Supervisors on April 8 unanimously approved a package of actions to expand behavioral health services for Medi‑Cal beneficiaries, grow the local behavioral‑health workforce and adopt revised procedures for involuntary psychiatric holds under the Lanterman‑Petris‑Short (LPS) framework.

County behavioral health staff told the board they are pursuing multiple steps to increase capacity across the continuum, including negotiating to add up to 30 Medi‑Cal‑eligible psychiatric inpatient beds at Paradise Valley Hospital, issuing requests for statements of qualifications (SOQs) for partial hospitalization programs (PHP) and intensive outpatient programs (IOP) for adults, and seeking contracts to add chemical dependency recovery hospital (CDRH) beds. Staff also asked the board to adopt revised LPS designation guidelines and processes to align with recent state law changes.

The actions respond to a county planning model that estimated large increases in needed capacity across crisis diversion, subacute services and community‑based care. County staff described a multi‑year gap between current utilization and modeled “optimal” capacity and said the…