Increasing Capacity Via Telemedicine: The Mental Health Crisis

So this website contains links to sites which are not owned or maintained by the American Hospital Association. When its ‘first year’ data is analyzed, Director Thomas Warcup, expects to see that the proactive approach to behavioral health problems translates into fewer emergency department visits and inpatient days and healthier patients, the practice just opened in December. In 2011, that was up to nearly 3,We’ve increased admissions 53 percent and our average daily census 46 percent, Simpson says, Five years ago, the hospital had fewer than 2000 admissions per year. Do you know an answer to a following question. Upbeat, why is Rob Simpson, president and CEO of the Brattleboro Retreat? Vt, since the 177yearold psychiatric and addiction hospital in Brattleboro. Addition of the program for uniformed service personnel policemen, firemen, EMTs, veterans has increased our reach considerably, Simpson says.

Today, 40 the percent Retreat’s patients come from outside Vermont.

The Retreat recently began admitting highintensity patients who will have been treated at the Vermont State Hospital until Tropical Storm Irene demolished the facility last year.

Vermont Gov. Now this presentation will describe Providence St. Therefore the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 means privatepayer coverage for behavioral health services is improving over time. Sounds familiar? I have some hope that the picture will begin to change, says Bruce Schwartz, deputy chairman, department of psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in NY, with parity now being the law of the land.

I’m sure that the Retreat delivered.

Treating adults, adolescents and children and providing programming for adults who suffer both addiction and mental illness, the hospital opened two new programs.

The hospital also opened a 15 bed unit to serve lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender adults with mental illness or addiction in an affirming environment. Nevertheless, the Uniformed Services Program provides trauma and substance abuse treatment for individuals in the military, law enforcement and identical services who have suffered emotional wounds in the line of duty. Actually the transformation of the nation’s health care delivery model provides an opportunity to increase mental health and substance abuse treatment, says Bruce Schwartz, deputy chairman of the department of psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in NYC. Across the world we are going into with health homes and accountable care organizations I know it’s imperative that there be an alignment of the goals of providing highquality, empirically validated and efficient care, he says. So there’re more days of work lost by employees who are working with mental illness than back pain, diabetes or asthma, says Rebecca Chickey, director of the American Hospital Association’s Section for Psychiatric and Substance Abuse Services.

Employers are making the connection between behavioral health problems and their bottom line. Integrating behavioral and medical health services is just one of a few approaches that forward thinking providers are taking to address America’s growing mental health and substance abuse problems. Ability to coordinate care has never been better. On top of this, care navigators work with patients to be sure they get the specific services they need. Notice, in the short run, so that’s doing a better job of caring for patients, Brier says. Care managers are tasked with coordinating resources efficiently to reduce avoidable emergency and inpatient utilization. Then, the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services will provide up to $ 75 million in federal Medicaid matching funds to 11 states and the District of Columbia to test whether reimbursing private psychiatric hospitals for emergency services improves care while reducing costs and the burden on general acute care hospital emergency departments.