Hospitals continue to advocate for state support to meet current needs and make system improvements, including calling for legislation to:
- Support the establishment of Medicaid rate structures for new initiatives such as children’s behavioral health urgent care centers, statewide emergency mobile psychiatric services, and community-based and school-based services
- Focus on retaining and recruiting a skilled, diverse, and resilient workforce, and encourage the implementation of integrated care models for child, adolescent, and adult patients, such as Community Care Teams (CCTs)
- Invest additional financial resources to sustain and increase access to home-based, community-based, and hospital-based outpatient services for all patients
- Increase Medicaid rates for partial hospitalization program (PHP), intensive outpatient services (IOP), and in-home psychiatric care programs to enable timely and safe discharge from hospitals, reduce waiting lists, and improve timely access to behavioral health services
- Implement Medicaid reimbursement for care coordination initiatives
- Expand the urgent crisis center model and mobile crisis services
