Nonprofit case histories
PROBLEM: Many low-income Coloradans needing mental health treatment are falling through the cracks because of funding shortfalls.
SOLUTION: Mobilization of efforts to make sure Medicaid expansion covers those who need assistance.
STRATEGY: Health plan provider Colorado Access's Access Behavioral Care (ABC) program that administers Charg treatment of patients to expand its ABC program.
Colorado Access ABC: More help and hope to catch the mentally ill falling through the cracks
Providing mental health treatment for those who cannot afford it is an uphill battle in Colorado and the nation. The Colorado Access ABC program has led the way in providing mental health assistance where funding has been in short supply. With Obamacare expanding resources, health plan provider Colorado Access is poised to serve a larger number of people than ever before with superior services to treat those with mental health disorders.
Mentally ill people on the streets and in our society are a concern for everyone. Recent events of mass shootings have raised concerns that not enough is being done in identifying and treating those with mental health problems.
There is no easy panacea for the mental health care deficiencies in our country, but proactive efforts and strategies are tackling this issue.
One gaping hole is that the indigent and poor are a large group with mental health problems who are falling through the cracks.
There is hope that Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid will boost mental health treatment. Not all states may be sufficiently on board for an increase of treatments for the poor. But Colorado is positioned to take on a larger role to provide this much needed care.
The existing mechanisms in Colorado have been providing mental health care under strained and difficult conditions. Because they don’t qualify for Medicaid, up to ten individuals a month with severe mental health disorders are turned down by the Charg Resource Center, an organization that provides outpatient therapy and social services, some of it funded by private donations. According to Charg executive director David Burgess, “Medicaid has the best mental health plan available. It provides much better coverage than most private plans.”
Not treating mentally ill people is a vicious circle, because many are unable to work because of their disorders. Treatment would help put them back into the workforce, benefitting not just them, but taxpayers, who are burdened assisting indigents on the streets and homeless shelters, and in hospital emergency rooms.
A Colorado organization is mobilizing to make sure the Medicaid expansion will effectively include more individuals with behavioral health disorders. Health plan provider Colorado Access, with its Access Behavioral Care (ABC) program that administers Charg treatment of patients, is committed to expanding its ABC program by a third by the end of 2013.
Without continued and increased funding, the lives of people like Denver resident Zim Olson would be jeopardized. Olson has been described as a mathematical genius, but his severe schizophrenia has seen him in and out of mental institutions all of his life. Thanks to services like Charg and Colorado Access ABC, his illness has been controlled, covering $800 monthly for his medications. He says he doesn’t know where he’d be without these organizations’ help in providing his medications, professional therapy and medical care, and the social support that he has received. Olson is very active in his own mental health care and has become a strong advocate for publicly-funded mental health treatment for the indigent.
With heightened concern for mental health issues in our country, and their dangerous repercussions, these publicly-funded efforts promise to be important steps in helping provide solutions.
