Mental health providers grapple with Medicaid expansion
October 21, 2010 in Special Needs News by Admin Dawn
For District health officials, it was an easy decision.
The federal government handed them an opportunity to save $56 million over four years by expanding Medicaid this summer and they jumped at it. They switched 35,000 low-income residents from the city -funded D.C. Health Care Alliance insurance plan to a Medicaid plan and reaped the reward.
It looked like a win-win: The city got some financial relief and the new Medicaid beneficiaries got mental health coverage, which was not part of the Alliance plan. But it creates a problem for the city’s mental health-care providers, who said this week that they are faced with serving thousands of new clients they are not prepared to manage.
Read more here: Mental health providers grapple with Medicaid expansion.
