Financing Substance Abuse and Mental Health Treatment: Working Across Systems

NCSL Fall Forum Meeting
San Antonio, Texas
December 5, 2006

For questions about this meeting, send an e-mail to Allison Colker at allison.colker@ncsl.org.

Financing Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment: Working Across Systems

Suzanne Gelber, M.S.W., Ph.D., Managing Partner, The Avisa Group [Presentation ]

How Are We Spending Our Money?

States use many public funding streams to finance treatment for mental health and substance use disorders (SUD). We will discuss the trends in public financing for these services. Doreen Cavanaugh will highlight relevant federal funding for SUD and mental health services.

Doreen Cavanaugh, Ph.D., Research Assistant Professor, Health Policy Institute, Georgetown University [Presentation ]

A Local Approach to Integrate Funding

The Texas NorthSTAR program is a behavioral health managed care project in the Dallas, TX area that has blended funding from the Texas Medicaid, substance abuse and mental health departments into one system. Dave Wanser will discuss the issues and strategies used to implement the program as well as how they obtained buy-in from local stakeholders.

Dave Wanser, Ph.D., Deputy Commissioner for Behavioral and Community Health Services, TX Department of State Health Services [Presentation ]

Statewide Approach for Integrating Funding: NM Behavioral Health Collaborative

New Mexico’s Behavioral Health Purchasing Collaborative consists of 18 state departments and agencies tasked with creating a single behavioral health service delivery system throughout the State. Steve Johnson will discuss the strategies used to implement the program and discuss successes and challenges to the initiative.

Steve Johnson, LPCC, Interim Behavioral Health Manager, NM Human Services Department [Presentation ]

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