Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H) www.dartmouth-hitchcock.org and Cheshire Medical Center www.cheshire-med-com are implementing a new five year $150 million statewide initiative awarded by CMS www.cms.gov to integrate and improve behavioral and physical healthcare. The funding will be used to help the more than 90,000 Medicaid-designated patients throughout the state.
This effort will bring together mental health and substance use disorder treatment, physical health, social needs, housing, transportation, and the criminal justice system to produce a coordinated effort to care for New Hampshire’s most vulnerable residents.
Under the federal Demonstration Waiver from CMS to New Hampshire, D-H and Cheshire will partner with nearly 50 community-based organizations to support more than 21,000 Medicaid patients in 40 towns in western New Hampshire with about 9,000 patients with behavioral health needs.
Community-based partners will include social service organizations, hospitals, county facilities, plus general health and behavioral health providers including mental health and substance use disorders services. The project will engage the resources of D-H’s Department of Psychiatry and use components of the Healthy Monadnock program at Cheshire.
To further help Medicaid patients with behavioral health services in their communities, HHS recently selected eight states to participate in a new two year “Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) demonstration program. The CCBHC demonstration is part of an effort to integrate behavioral health with physical healthcare to help vulnerable populations.
The states taking part in the demonstration program include Minnesota, Missouri, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. Plans are to coordinate care with primary care providers and hospitals in the communities to improve access to behavioral health services for Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries to help individuals with both mental and substance use disorders.