Mental health providers grapple with Medicaid expansion

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.

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