More funding ahead for jail mental health projects

By STEPHANIE HERNANDEZ McGAVIN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Health and law enforcement professionals are increasingly recognizing the importance of innovative mental health jail diversion programs, working to implement them in their own counties with state and locally funds. The Department of Health and Human Services will fund expansion of jail diversion efforts in January 2016 through Gov. Rick Snyder’s Mental Health Diversion Council. The program will award about $1.2 million in total to two new agency projects and current pilot projects. Steven Mays, the diversion administrator at the department said, said this year’s program will be a little different from previous years’. To give agencies enough support and time to establish their programs, the council will continue to fund existing projects instead of a large number of new ones, Mays said.

ADHD contributes to higher ed learning problems

By MICHAEL KRANSZ
Capital News Service
LANSING — Nearly 12.8 percent of all Michigan residents ages 4 to 17 are diagnosed with ADHD, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics. ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, is marked by inattention, lack of focus and sometimes hyperactivity, and that can present problems for young learners as they move into higher education, said Adelle Cadieux, a pediatric psychologist at the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids. That population of ADHD youths has increased by 39 percent since 2003, according to the latest CDC figures. As with other disorders such as autism, growing awareness and identification of ADHD has contributed to the increase of diagnoses, Cadieux said. But, Cadieux said, there are always some practitioners and psychologists who over-diagnose.

Rural areas lack mental health professionals

By ZHAO PENG
Capital News Service
LANSING — Amid a national shortage of psychiatrists, and Michigan is among the states that lack enough mental health professionals and facilities, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “There is a shortage of service providers, psychiatrists and physicians that are able to work with people that have mental illness and prescribe medications,” said Kathleen Gross, executive director of the Michigan Psychiatric Society. “There is shortage of funding in the state for community mental health centers to provide a great deal of service to the citizens.”
The U.P. and Northeast Michigan face the most serious shortages, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. Among 15 U.P. counties, 13 are designated as shortage areas. Ten of the 11 Northeast Michigan counties have the same designation.

Questions remain on mental health insurance coverage

By MICHAEL GERSTEIN
Capital News Service
LANSING – When new provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act take effect next year, a number of things could change, but don’t expect a clear answer as to what those changes will be. Insurers, health administrators and legislators are still trying to iron out details, and without a lot of consensus. One shift that’s supposed to extend to Michigan – on paper – is called mental health parity. Under the federal law, employers with fewer than 50 employees will have to cover psychological or psychiatric treatment in the same insurance package that covers physical care. Employers with more than 50 employees won’t have to do the same until 2017.

Jails, prisons struggle with mentally ill inmates

By MICHAEL GERSTEIN
Capital News Service
LANSING — It started slowly, when the Traverse City Regional Psychiatric Hospital shut its doors in the mid-1980s. Then in the 1990s, 10 more folded in rapid succession. And like the last teetering blocks in a long line of dominoes, Northville Regional Psychiatric Hospital fell in 2003 and the Mt. Pleasant Center in 2009. Now, the state continues to grapple with lasting effects of those closures.

Counties look to Medicaid to slow mental health costs

By CORTNEY ERNDT
Capital News Service
LANSING – Jail inmates’ mental health costs will continue to rise without an expansion of Medicaid, according to sheriff’s departments across the state. In 2012, the Allegan County Jail spent about $15,250, averaging about $1,270 per month to improve mental health, the Allegan County Sheriff’s Department said. In March of this year, mental health services for inmates cost about $2,400, almost double the monthly average of 2012, the department said. Ann Russell, the corrections administrator at Oakland County Jail, said her sheriff’s office spends about $1.3 million annually on inmate mental health services, including the cost of medications. “The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office has been working for many years to assist in reducing the jail’s cost for mental health services,” Russell said.

Push to integrate physical, mental health services

By CELESTE BOTT
Capital News Service
LANSING – The look of health care in the future will combine behavioral health and physical care for more uniform treatment, according to James Haveman, director of the Department of Community Health. “There’s a great deal of effort being made to integrate mental health, substance abuse and physical health care,” Haveman said. “If we build connections between these different forms of care, we can make sure people have cost-effective access to the treatment they need.”
According to Haveman, those connections range from changes in health policy to bringing rehabilitation centers into hospitals, rather than expecting patients to seek a separate facility. For example, Michigan Health Information Network, a state entity, promotes health care through electronic exchange of information. The network now uses the PatientSecure system, an electronic directory, for health care providers across the state.

Mental heath courts could expand

By JON GASKELL
Capital News Service
LANSING – Officials are looking to expand a pilot program that has kept hundreds of mentally ill defendants from going to prison. In his address on public safety, Gov. Rick Snyder proposed $2.1 million in new funding for mental health courts, a pilot program operating since 2008 that allows defendants to avoid jail time by completing court-monitored treatment. Snyder also proposed starting a new mental health court in Saginaw County, bringing the total number to nine. The program is currently funded by $1.6 million in federal stimulus money, which will no longer be available by the end of the year. “Mental health courts are the best resource available to provide treatment to mentally ill individuals who break the law,” Snyder said.