January 2001

Improving Montana's Mental Health System - Final Report

In the Spring of 2000, the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS), Addiction and Mental Disorders Division (AMDD), Mental Health Services Bureau (MHSB) selected The Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc. to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the Medicaid Mental Health Program and the Mental Health Services Plan and to offer recommendations for the future. Both the Mental Health Services Bureau and TAC see this project as a parallel effort to supplement the work of the Mental Health Oversight and Advisory Council's (MHOAC) efforts to make recommendations about Montana's mental health system. This report constitutes TAC's final deliverable and incorporates reports completed for each of the three identified task as well as a report describing the conditions necessary to accomplish the system improvements recommended in these reports. The three tasks included an independent review and assessment of the Mental Health Services Program (MHSP) and the Medicaid Mental Health Plan (MMHP), recommendations regarding outcome and performance measures for the future, and an evaluation of the service delivery system in Montana along with findings recommendations for system and service changes.