Association Executive Directors Community

Dear Association Executives - At the link below please find the results from a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) on "Strategies to Address Behavioral Health Workforce Shortages: Findings from a Survey of State Medicaid Programs."

Some key findings from the survey include:

• Behavioral health conditions are most prevalent in Medicaid enrollees, with data from 2020 showing that approximately 39% of Medicaid enrollees were living with a mental health or substance use disorder.
• Workforce challenges are widespread and go beyond Medicaid, but shortages may be exacerbated in Medicaid. 

Additionally, KFF surveyed state Medicaid officials about their state's strategies for addressing behavioral health workforce shortages that were in place in state fiscal year (FY) 2022 or implemented/planned for FY 2023.

• Lower Medicaid payment rates (relative to other payers) as well as disparities in pay between physical and mental health providers could limit participation in Medicaid and further exacerbate existing workforce shortages.
• Managed care plans, which now serve most Medicaid beneficiaries, are responsible under their contracts with states for ensuring adequate provider networks and setting rates to providers, but states have several options to ensure that rate increases are passed to the providers that contract with managed care organizations 
• To attract or retain Medicaid behavioral health professionals, nearly two-thirds of responding states (28 of 44) implemented fee-for-service (FFS) rate increases in FY 2022 or plan to do so in FY 2023 
• Many states report the use of ARPA HCBS funds to temporarily increase behavioral health provider rates.
• Nearly all responding states reported they had at least one strategy in place or planned for FY 2022/2023 to expand the workforce, such as extending the types of providers that could bill for services, using inter-professional consultation codes, or engaging in outreach efforts to recruit new providers.

About three-quarters of responding states reported at least one strategy in place or planned for FY 2022/2023 to reduce provider administrative burden both in FFS and/or MCOs.

Please see this link - A Look at Strategies to Address Behavioral Health Workforce Shortages: Findings from a Survey of State Medicaid Programs for the survey.

Please let us know if you have questions and please feel free to share this.

Thank you.




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Neal Comstock
Director of Membership
National Council
NealC@TheNationalCouncil.org
202 748-8793
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