President’s Message for December
Greetings to all in this beautiful season of celebration and hope. And we do have reason to hope!
The last few years showed us an unprecedented uptick in demand for behavioral healthcare services. In Massachusetts we also saw an unprecedented increase in firm plans to create structural change in our behavioral health care system. The Ominbus Mental Health Bill and the Road Map to Behavioral Health Reform pointed the way for the Commonwealth.
One of the biggest structural changes in Massachusetts will be the 25 Community Behavioral Health Centers (CBHCs), opening across the state in January of 2023. Among other goals, they are meant to serve as an alternative to emergency departments. CBHCs will integrate crisis and community-based treatment by combining mobile teams, crisis stabilization, and care coordination. The Emergency Service Providers (ESP) programs will now be physically located in the CBHC facilities and will bear new names/acronyms: Adult Mobile Crisis Intervention (AMCI) and Youth Mobile Crisis Intervention (YMCI).
CBHCs will offer crisis triage and evaluation. Then, depending on the urgency of care needed, will arrange for same day or next day treatment and stabilization. There will be stabilization/respite beds for adults and a whole new tier of stabilization beds for youth, as well. The availability of youth stabilization beds will serve as early intervention and help take demand pressure off the Community Based Acute Treatment (CBAT) programs and reset them to their role as intensive, short-term, acute residential units for children and adolescents, a stepped down level of care from inpatient services.
The CBHCs will make arrangements for acute or maintenance outpatient mental health or substance use therapy including individual therapy, topic-based group therapy, and specific treatment approaches for children, youth, families, and older adults. They will help with prescribing, medication assisted treatment for substance use and/or psychiatric medication, and make connections to peer support. People with MassHealth are eligible to receive all CBHC services. Those with other health insurances or no health insurance can receive urgent and emergency care.
People living within our affiliate’s geographic area will be most likely to visit the CBHCs in one of these locations: Lynn, Lowell, Waltham, or Framingham. The CBHCs will have evening and weekend hours.
To learn up-to-date information about the CBHCs, join us at our virtual Annual Meeting on Monday, January 23, 2023. We will have representatives from Advocates speak to us about their new CBHC locations and the revamped approach to urgent/crisis behavioral healthcare in Massachusetts. Registration details about that opportunity are available in our Annual Meeting article namicentralmiddlesex.org/newsletter/annual-meeting-looking-ahead. The Central Middlesex board members are looking forward to gathering with you in January.