Ohio mental health director outlines statewide expansion of crisis response, recovery supports

Leanne Corning, director of the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, told the House Community Revitalization Committee on Monday that the department will scale a range of crisis-response, treatment and recovery supports statewide and layer new services for jails and prisons.

Corning said the department is expanding mobile response and stabilization services (MRSS) — a mobile crisis program for youth — from 52 counties to all 88 counties, is proposing investments to build adult mobile response statewide, and is adding forensic navigators, increased medication access in correctional settings, and telepsychiatry pilots to strengthen care in jails and juvenile facilities.

The moves are part of a broader push, Corning said, to build the system promised in the Community Mental Health Act of 1963 and to reduce emergency department visits, hospitalizations and criminal-justice involvement that stem from behavioral health crises. "We can better serve Ohioans in their homes, in their communities," Corning said, adding that a single MRSS encounter with 42 days of follow-up costs about $980 compared with roughly $1,700 for an emergency department visit and about $14,000 for inpatient hospitalization.

Corning summarized the department’s scope and capacity, saying OhioMAS employs 2,853 people, operates six regional psychiatric hospitals with roughly 1,000 inpatient beds and serves about 3,000 Ohioans in those hospitals each year. She said the hospitals are at about 96% occupancy and that more than 90% of state hospital beds are currently occupied by people involved with the criminal justice system.

Why it matters: Committee members pressed Corning on how the…