Association Executive Directors Community

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. 

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