June 29, 2009

Providing Behavioral Health Services to Medicaid Managed Care Enrollees: Options for Improving the Organization and Delivery of Services

This report is divided into the following sections: (1) a vision for delivering and financing physical and behavioral health services in New York; (2) an overview of how the Medicaid benefit for Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries with serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI) is structured; (3) an examination of what is needed to better understand the target population; (4) an analysis of how to integrate and improve the delivery of physical and behavioral health services; and (5) a discussion of concrete options for New York's policymakers. There are no easy solutions for the challenges that New York faces. However, this report suggests ways for the state to create more integrated systems of care for SSI beneficiaries with SPMI to improve care and reduce unnecessary exacerbations of illness that can result in avoidable utilization of high-cost services.