A few weeks ago the Governor announced a final agreement had been reached in the 32 year old Arnold vs. Sarn case regarding care and services for individuals with serious mental illness. The Settlement is the foundation to end the lawsuit while establishing a blueprint for a successful community-based behavioral health system in Arizona. This [...]
This week we’re making 3 efficiency changes in our behavioral health system. Instead of having providers bill us and AHCCCS for different services, all the bills will go to AHCCCS- and we’ll get statements from them. It’ll be the same with enrollment- all paperwork is processed through AHCCCS and we’ll get a standard report that [...]
As you’ve probably seen, the Legislature went into a special session and worked some long hours to pass a FY 2014 budget. While we’re still analyzing everything, here are some key provisions of the budget bill as it was sent to the Governor. Medicaid (AHCCCS) will be restored and expanded. This will be a big [...]
We’re continuing to make significant progress in our licensing regulatory reform efforts. Our overall goal is to simplify and streamline our regulations so they align with our strategic plan and map to improve public health outcomes. The new regulations will more acutely focus on health and safety criteria- and will put more emphasis on outcomes. [...]
Trauma Informed Care provides another perspective when working with individuals in the behavioral health system. Think of it this way, our life experiences have helped shape each of us into the person we are today, why would it be any different for our patients/residents. When a person experiences trauma it can have any number of effects [...]
Magellan of AZ & their behavioral health providers (and of course our DBHS shop) have been collaborating to develop and update an innovative provider outcomes dashboards to make a transparent window into the effectiveness of the behavioral health system based on core metrics. The recently updated online dashboards provide great info to the folks that we serve and their [...]
We’ve had to make lots of difficult decisions in response to the ongoing funding shortfalls in our behavioral health system (as well as everywhere in state government). Many decisions (while painful in the short term) have been necessary to maintain long term system stability as Arizona continues to emerge from this unprecedented fiscal crisis. While [...]
Our behavioral health coalition completed and published our brand-new Raise Your Voice! Report... a product of our behavioral health focus groups with peers and family members in late 2010. We’re most proud of the fact that the entire process—from beginning to end—had the full participation or peers and family members (from the Arizona Peer and Family Coalition) in planning, organizing, leading [...]
We recently extended our contract with the Regional Behavioral Health Authority in Maricopa County through September 30, 2013. We authorized the contract extension (which will be the 6th year of the contract) so that we can better serve our members and families while we hammer out the details of several new initiatives designed to improve [...]
