FY 2024 behavioral health service expansion - the blue ridge health behavioral health expansion program will increase the number of patients receiving mental health services, and increase the number…

FY 2024 behavioral health service expansion - the blue ridge health behavioral health expansion program will increase the number of patients receiving mental health services, and increase the number of patients receiving SUD services, including patients receiving treatment with moud by 2400 over the two year period of the grant. The expansion will occur in several areas: 1) have referrals for behavioral health services immediately contacted by a care manager who is also a person with lived experiences, 2) connect people with assessment, 3) increase the availability of psychological testing to reduce the waiting lists, 4) add training in the areas of eating disorders and autism, 5) increase the number of clinicians that are dual licensed, and 6) cover the costs of supervision time for individuals hired with provisional licenses as a means of increasing the number of licensed clinicians. The service area covered by this programming will be 8 counties in the appalachian region of western north carolina. To accomplish these goals blue ridge community health (blue ridge) will have a care manager for behavioral health services available for each of the 8 counties to assist those identified with mental health needs or SUD and referred by blue ridge primary care providers. The care manager will help those referred access the assessment process and community resources to address the social determinants of health related to the mental health or substance use. The initial contact is a means of providing immediate support for those in need. Blue ridge will expand the care management currently provided and hire three care managers to cover three additional counties .the immediate contact is expected to increase the number of patients served for behavioral health or SUD. To accommodate the increase, an additional assessment clinician will be hired. Blue ridge currently has a waiting list for those who need specific or specialized psychological testing, so to increase the number of patients served, blue R idge will increase the current part-time position in psychological testing to a full time position. To address the need for increased services, blue ridge will increase training for specializations such as autism and eating disorders and work with clinicians to be dual-licensed in various subdisciplines. Blue ridge will assess the impact of these additional services through our quality improvement plan, specifically tracking the primary care providers' referrals and treatment (medication or not) and changes in the PHQ9. Blue ridge currently has in place a system to track the referrals to community resources made by care managers and will continue to use that process to evaluate the expansion of services.