Opening Day for Medical Marijuana
Today was Opening Day for the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act. We rolled out our brand-new website at 8 a.m. today and began processing applications for Qualifying Patient and Designated Caregiver Registry Identification Cards. The system went live at 8:00 a.m. and we completed our first qualified patient card at about 8:30. Our first applicant was a 60 year-old gentleman from Scottsdale [...]
Adjusting Licensing to Accommodate Integration
I’ve written often over the last few weeks about our priority over the next couple of years to better integrate primary healthcare and psychiatric care in AZ, and that last week HHS approved the Health Homes Planning Grant which will focus on improving coordination of care and increasing access to primary care and prevention services, resulting in meaningful improvements in [...]
Incentivizing Chronic Disease Self-Management
This month AHCCCS told us that they’ve picked our Bureau of Tobacco & Chronic Disease as the state applicant for HHS’ Medicaid Incentives for Prevention of Chronic Diseases Grant. The grant proposal (which will be developed with AHCCCS) must be turned in to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services early next month. The grant is competitive, so we’re not [...]
Maricopa County Designated as a Mental Health Professional Shortage Area
The US Health Resources and Services Administration designated Maricopa County as a Mental Health Professional Shortage Area. This federal designation lets mental health facilities and providers participate in the National Health Service Corps Program, which recruits fully-trained health professionals to provide interdisciplinary primary health care services to underserved populations, assists clinicians in repayment of qualifying educational loans that are still owed, [...]
ADHS & the State Budget
As you have probably already heard, Legislature has passed and the Governor has signed a series of budget bills. One thing I know everyone will be glad to hear is that the remaining scheduled mandatory furlough days for this fiscal year and next are canceled. However, individual agencies have the option of using furloughs if necessary (I don't think it will be [...]
MM Tribal Consultation
Michael Allison has set up a Tribal Consultation meeting regarding Medical Marijuana to get input and advice from our tribal partners on the new medical marijuana law. There are a whole host of questions to consider, everything from whether any tribes intend to adopt the new law and whether they would ever be interested in the ADHS licensing a dispensary on [...]