Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc.

In 2014, Congress authorized the development of Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) on a demonstration basis.

The purpose of CCBHCs are to provide mental health and addiction services for low-income Americans with serious behavioral health needs. One-year federal planning grants were awarded to 24 states, including New York, to develop certification criteria and processes for designating CCBHCs, as well as to design a prospective payment system for reimbursement of qualified providers. Given New York’s other multiple health care reform efforts—including the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment program, rollout of integrated managed care models, and value-based payment arrangements—it was important for the State to consider the CCBHC project in the context of its other reforms. In 2015, NYHealth awarded a grant to the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) to provide New York State officials a useful platform for exchange with other states facing similar alignment issues, as well as with individualized technical assistance to support CCBHC design and implementation throughout the State.

Under this grant, CHCS supported New York and other planning grant states in their work to align CCBHC implementation with overall state efforts to integrate physical and behavioral health services and move toward value-based payments. CHCS identified proposed ways to align CCBHC implementation with other state-based delivery system and payment reforms, along with technical assistance needs that needed to be addressed to support this alignment. It convened a small group consultation to review key findings, recommend approaches for alignment, and put together a technical assistance agenda to support alignment efforts, all to be summarized in an issue brief. CHCS offered New York and other planning grant states some technical assistance and a series of webinars to help them think through and address individual CCBHC alignment needs. It developed a second issue brief highlighting key issues and approaches identified during technical assistance activities.