Senate President Offers Mental Health “Plan of Action” Proposal
Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg announced his
“Plan of Action” for mental health services this week.
In a press conference on Tuesday, the Senate’s leader announced
his push to leverage millions of dollars from various sources to
add 2,000 residential crisis treatment beds, 200 mental health
triage personnel, 25 mobile Crisis Support Teams, expand the
Integrated Services for Mentally Ill Parolees( ISMIP), and
increase Medi-Cal enrollment and outreach efforts for at-risk
people who may require mental health services.
The plan, to be implemented over two years, would also offer
counties the opportunity for $500,000 grants to meet the
infrastructure and staffing needs for these additional
services.
The plan calls for a mix of county realignment funds, federal
funds, Mental Health Services Act funds, grants from the
California Endowment for outreach, and certain designated funds
from hospitals to pay for it.
For more information, visit his website.
CSAC will have a more robust analysis of this plan after next
week’s May Revision budget so that we may more adequately analyze
the fiscal consequences and opportunities for counties.
State Pushes Coordinated Care Initiative Start to January 2014
The Department of Health Care Services announced this week that a
portion of the 8-county Coordinated Care Initiative, now
officially dubbed Cal Medi-Connect, will be pushed back until
January 2014. The start date had been pegged for September for
some of the participating counties.
For more information, visit the DHCS
web page.
