Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Mental Health topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County advances mental-health supports, approves contracts and seeks Medicaid waiver screening reimbursement
Summary
The Cayuga County Legislature approved several measures to expand mental-health assessment capacity and child-welfare clinical support, and discussed using Medicaid-waiver screening to unlock regional social-care reimbursements.
The Cayuga County Legislature on Nov. 12 approved multiple measures intended to expand clinical supports for child-welfare and mental-health services and discussed opportunities under the Medicaid 1115 waiver to secure screening reimbursement via the regional social-care network.
Christine (department presenter) asked the Legislature to accept CAPTA-related funding and contract with the county mental-health center to embed a part-time behavioral-health clinician within the child-welfare services unit. "We've been doing this since about 2018, 2019 and it's been helpful to have someone with a clinical background available to staff," she said, noting the arrangement is ongoing.
The Legislature also authorized contracts with clinical psychologists to perform court-ordered parental and child clinical assessments for child-welfare cases. Meeting materials and presenters said the resolution establishes an approved list of psychologists and permits contracting at a cited board-ordered hourly rate when needed.
Lawmakers adopted a budget amendment to incorporate an unexpected $7,277 in state aid for Unity House supportive housing beds; the presenter described the funds as 100 percent state aid and instructed staff to add the revenue and corresponding expense line to the mental-health budget.
Separately, public-health staff described work with the region’s social-care network (referred to in the meeting as "Flippa/FLPA") about operationalizing social-determinants-of-health screening for Medicaid-managed-care members. Staff said the county would perform screenings and receive reimbursement for the screening activity, then refer eligible residents to care-management or housing and nutrition supports. "We'll bring a resolution forward to be able to contract with FLPA to reimburse us for the screening that we'll be doing," staff said.
Mental-health presenters also described regional OMH (Office of Mental Health) initiatives to improve discharge planning from behavioral-health units and said the county has established standing meetings with hospital social workers to coordinate shared clients and reduce the risk that patients are lost to follow-up. Presenters identified persistent constraints including limited inpatient child beds and the need for better cross-agency coordination.
Next steps noted in the meeting: the county will execute contract documents for psychologist services as needed, incorporate the Unity House state aid into the mental-health budget, and return a resolution to contract with the regional social-care network for screening reimbursement if staff can finalize operational details.
Votes at a glance: The county approved the CAPTA clinician resolution (HH4), the psychologist contract authority (HH5), and the Unity House state-aid budget amendment (HH7).
