Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Mobile Crisis topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Mobile crisis director outlines telehealth pilot, raises confidentiality and billing questions
Summary
The council heard a presentation on a new mobile crisis response pilot that will use a telehealth vendor to connect callers with licensed clinicians; members flagged confidentiality with dispatch, Medicaid/Medicare billing challenges and sustainability concerns.
The Park County Local Advisory Council heard a detailed presentation on plans for a new mobile crisis support team that will pilot telehealth-based clinical support as part of crisis responses.
The presenter said the program will hire paraprofessionals to staff on-call shifts and use a telehealth vendor (spelled “Alena” in some remarks and “Alina” in others in the transcript) to connect callers with licensed clinicians for short interventions and, in some cases, brief prescriptions to bridge gaps in medication access. “We’re gonna be the first in this day to incorporate telehealth into our crisis intervention,” the presenter said, framing the arrangement as a pilot to be evaluated for sustainability.
Why it matters: the model is intended to reduce hospital transports or jail involvement by providing timely clinical contact and short-term medication support. Council members welcomed the innovation but pushed for clarity on three fronts: how the vendor will coordinate with local dispatch, how confidentiality will be preserved given locally monitored emergency radio traffic, and how the team will sustain operations under Medicaid/Medicare billing constraints.
On confidentiality, members noted that local scanners and routine radio traffic can make sensitive response information widely audible. The presenter said the team will coordinate with dispatch and is drafting protocols to protect confidentiality while ensuring responders’ safety. “I’m working through the confidentiality piece … we don’t want someone to feel unsafe calling 911,” the presenter said as they described options to route 988-originated requests through dispatch when appropriate.
On payment and sustainability, the presenter said the vendor charges roughly $200 per day and that response-pay rates for local responders would range from about $20 to $25 per hour; on-call stipends were described as modest. Council members recommended exploring local provider pools and billing arrangements rather than long-term reliance on the vendor. “If we can find a mini version of that here, local providers that will do on-call shifts, that would save us,” one member said.
Next steps: the presenter asked members to review the pilot plan and to provide operational questions and local resource suggestions at an upcoming counselor meeting; the council agreed to follow up with discussions about dispatch coordination and legal/contract implications.
The council did not take a formal vote on the pilot; it remains at the discussion and planning stage.
