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Community mental health agency asks Van Buren County to back state Medicaid funding fix
Summary
A representative of the local community mental health authority asked the Van Buren County commissioners to endorse a resolution urging Michigan officials to fully allocate appropriated Medicaid funds and ensure capitation rates reflect local costs; commissioners voted to forward a resolution for final approval on June 10.
Debbie Hess, representing Amherick County Community Mental Health, asked the Van Buren County Board of Commissioners on May 27 to endorse a resolution asking the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Legislature to fully allocate appropriated Medicaid funds and to ensure capitation rates are actuarially sound at regional and county levels.
Hess told the commissioners that the public behavioral health system has seen rising service demand since the COVID-19 public health emergency, while local capitation payments to community mental health agencies have not kept pace. "We have had 700,000 people drop off of Medicaid while the public behavioral health system has seen the numbers that we are serving lots," Hess said, and she described rising costs for inpatient psychiatric hospitalization, residential services and applied behavioral analysis for autism as major cost drivers.
Hess said the state had appropriated additional funds but that those dollars had not flowed through to local community mental health providers, and she urged the county to ask state officials to address distribution and to account for new cost drivers such as sick leave, minimum-wage increases and added administrative requirements. She also said the county should oppose any federal reductions to Medicaid.
A commissioner moved that the county pass a resolution urging state action on the financing shortfall; the board approved the motion and directed that the resolution be finalized for full board consideration on June 10. Commissioners voiced general support during the motion; the record shows the motion carried by voice vote.
The presentation included requests for (1) immediate allocation of appropriated Medicaid funds to community mental health agencies for the current fiscal year, (2) actuarially sound capitation rates that reflect regional/local costs, and (3) recognition in funding formulas of recent legislative and cost changes that increase service and administrative costs. Hess said negotiations with the state department and supportive legislators were underway but that implementation details remained unclear.
The commission did not adopt a final resolution on May 27; it moved the draft forward for formal approval at the June 10 meeting. The county did not take any binding action beyond forwarding the resolution for final consideration.
