January 11, 2009

Iowa Seeks Iowa Plan for Behavioral Health

Iowa Department of Human Services and the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) seek a contractor to administer the provision of mental health and substance abuse treatment services for the Medicaid program and substance abuse treatment services funded by federal block grant and state appropriations for IDPH.

For Medicaid members, the contractor will administer an array of services from inpatient hospitalization to services not available in regular Medicaid such as intensive psychiatric rehabilitation. The contractor will also pay the claims of providers resulting from these services for which they are at full risk after receiving a capitation fee per Medicaid member for all their services. The contractor will apply approved utilization management activities to the approval and payment methodology.

For IDPH, the contractor will provide specified administrative services for substance abuse treatment ranging from residential through outpatient. The contractor will receive an annual non-risk funding amount and will pay monthly disbursements of annual contracts to IDPH network providers.