By Patricia Boozang, Sabrina Corlette, Ashley Traube, and JoAnn Volk, Manatt Health and Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms

Behavioral health challenges have grown considerably during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, federal, state, and local policymakers increasingly recognize the need for alternatives to law enforcement-driven responses to behavioral health crises. While the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP) gave states the option of covering community mobile crisis intervention services in Medicaid for five years beginning in April 2022, it will be important to develop long-term financing mechanisms to ensure these services are sustainable.

In a new issue brief for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health & Value Strategies program, we teamed up with experts from Manatt Health to provide recommendations for a hybrid coverage and funding approach for mobile crisis services where mobile crisis providers would obtain:

• A set amount or base funding that allows them to maintain continuous coverage; and
• Third-party insurance reimbursement for services rendered to commercially covered individuals and Medicaid enrollees.

You can read the full report here.