Dear Association Executives - Early this morning, Congress
released text of a year-end spending bill, which includes numerous mental health and substance use related provisions. The "omnibus" bill, as it is referred to, is expected to be passed on Friday, 12/23.
We're pleased to see several key National Council priorities in the bill text, including:
- Mental Health Access Improvement Act: Expands the Medicare workforce to include marriage and family therapists and mental health counselors
- Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act: Removes certain barriers to access for medication-assisted treatment
- Medication Access and Training Expansion Act: Boosts substance use disorder training for health care providers and helps standardize prescriber education practices
- Expansion of Peer Specialists within the Dept. of Veterans Affairs: Creates a $13 million program to increase outreach and education about peer specialists, expands virtual peer support platforms, and makes permanent a program for hiring at least two peer specialists at every VA primary care facility
Broken out by issue area, below is a summary of key funding level increases included in the bill:
- Substance Use Services: $4.2 billion (increase of $203M) to combat the opioid epidemic. Funds are targeted toward improving treatment and prevention and workforce needs.
- CCBHCs: $385 million (increase of $70M) for CCBHCs through SAMHSA grants, on top of the already expanded CCBHC demonstration program through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act
- 988: $512 million for SAMHSA suicide prevention activities including $439.6M for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
- Mental Health Block Grant: $1.01 billion (increase of $150M)
- National Institute of Mental Health: $2.34 billion (increase of $120.9M) for NIMH, including targeted funding for research on social media's impact on mental health
- School Based Grants: $111 million for school-based mental health grants at the Department of Education
- Project AWARE: $140 million (increase of $20M) for increasing awareness of mental health issues among youth, including training
- Mobile Crisis: $20 million, an increase of $10 million, to help communities create mobile behavioral health crisis response teams.
- Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery (STAR) Loan Repayment Program: $40 million toward educating and training SUD professionals
- Parity: Authorizes $10 million for grants to states to support parity enforcement
[Full bill text]
[Summary of HHS provisions]
We will continue to monitor the legislation closely and provide updates accordingly.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let us know.
Stephanie Katz, JD, MPH
Assistant Vice President, Public Policy and Advocacy
Policy Department
National Council for Mental Wellbeing
1400 K Street NW Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005
Direct: (509) 594-9105
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Neal Comstock
Director of Membership
National Council
NealC@TheNationalCouncil.org202 748-8793
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