Behavioral Health

Initiatives

Medicaid Behavioral Health Collaborative (MBHC) Project

 

Workgroup Website

Melissa Stone
Division of Behavioral Health
3601 C Street, Suite 878
Anchorage, Alaska 99524-0249
(907) 269-3600

Background

The federal landscape concerning Medicaid-funded behavioral health services is
undergoing significant changes in the following areas:

  • New Audits: Increased federal audits of state behavioral health services which have
    resulted in multi-million dollar paybacks in several states;
  • Reasserting Old Rules: Re-interpretation of existing regulations to disallow federal
    Medicaid reimbursement of services which have historically been allowable and
    reimbursable;
  • New Rules: Development of several new sets of federal regulations to significantly
    curtail the scope of behavioral health services reimbursable under federal Medicaid;
  • Payment Issues
    • Creating Silos: Separating Medicaid from child welfare, juvenile justice and
      education systems with increased pressure on these other systems to pay for
      services that have been historically paid by Medicaid
    • Unbundling: An increased unwillingness to pay for “bundled” services (daily
      rates, etc.) and instead to allow billing only for discreet units of services in
      very small time increments.

These factors taken collectively indicate the increasing reluctance of the federal
government to pay for behavioral health services under the Medicaid program and its
multi-level strategies to achieve major cost containment objectives in the federal budget.

Project Purpose

The purpose of this project is to examine the changes noted above and to assess their
impact on Alaska’s behavioral health system. The Project will be advisory to the State
and will address two sets of issues: immediate issues and planning issues. The Project
will first develop and oversee an action plan for those issues that are immediate. The
Project will then research those issues that are not yet certain and that require additional
information, and make recommendations on how to approach these longer-term issues.

Page created 6/27/2008