“It’s just very scary right now,” said Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, Orange County’s representative in the state Senate, of the latest developments in the state’s mental health care morass. “We’re all disturbed over what we think is happening. We don’t think this is the answer to much of anything.”
Specifically, Kinnaird is referring to a proposed new mental health care provider designation called critical access behavioral health agencies, or CABHA, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. Providers who fail to comply with the standards of the new designation by July 10 of next year will lose Medicaid dollars for a number of essential services, including case management.
Kinnaird is not alone in her concern. Story continues here ➤
