Human Services Needs Assessment - Qualitative Data: Public Forums, Mail Surveys, Focus Groups, and Interviews

Researchers at the Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida, under contract to the Pinellas County Human Services Department, collected data over several months in 2004 from people in Pinellas County for a human services needs assessment. Human Services was defined in collaboration with the county as including four areas: homeless services, health care, mental health and substance abuse services, and basic needs. This report details the methods and findings from data collected at public forums, focus groups, key informant interviews, and through open-ended questions on the mail surveys to providers and citizens/consumers

Medicaid Managed Mental Health Care Arrangements in AHCA Area 6: Organizational, Financial and Clinical Structures

This report, the first full report on the organizational, financial and clinical structures of the managed mental health care interventions in AHCA Area 6, is presented in the following sections. In Section 2 , we describe the methods used to identify, obtain and analyze information on the nine managed care plans operating in Area 6. In Section 3, we provide a chronology of events related to Medicaid managed care and then describe the Medicaid service delivery system in AHCA Area 6, providing contextual data on the number of Medicaid recipients enrolled in managed care plans, the number of MCOs and their enrollment, as well as a summary of the trends in enrollment. Section 4 provides a review of factors that are common across the carve in and carve out plans - that is, the benefit package, the performance indicators, the rate setting formula, and the service networks. Section 5 provides a detailed analysis of each of the nine managed care plans, focusing on the following key aspects of their operations: corporate affiliation and managed care organization (MCO) structure; functions, including the roles of subcontractors; geography and enrollment of the plan; network composition; payment and risk arrangements; clinical management structures; and coordination with general health care. As will be seen, there is much variability across the carve out and carve in conditions as well as within the carve in (HMO) condition. Section 6 provides a synthesis of the relevant findings organized around public policy concerns. Section 7summarizes the public policy implications and Section 8 presents concluding remarks

State Mental Health Policy: Critical Elements of Public-Sector Managed Behavioral Health Programs for Severe Mental Illness in Five States

The term “managed care” may be used to describe a wide variety of arrangements that have different structures, functions, and effects on the care of people who have behavioral health disorders. The evaluation of public-sector managed care plans has been hindered by a lack of a systematic vocabulary for describing them and a lack of instruments to operationalize this vocabulary into a set of measurement procedures. We developed and pilot tested an instrument to be used in categorizing public-sector managed care arrangements (1). The instrument was used to collect descriptive data on managed care plans in the Managed Behavioral Health Care in the Public Sector Study conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). In this multisite study, a competitive process was used to fund 21 sites in order to evaluate managed behavioral health services for four target populations. Here we report preliminary descriptive data from five SAMHSA sites at which the impact of managed care on adults with severe mental illness— one of the most vulnerable and important public-sector target populations— was studied

Evaluation of Florida’s Mental Health and Substance Abuse System Redesign Strategies: Year 1 Report

Under contract with the Department of Children and Families (DCF) and in accordance with the requirements of Senate Bill (SB)1258, the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute (FMHI), University of South Florida, is conducting an ongoing formative evaluation of the financing strategies authorized to be implemented by the legislation. The demonstration sites that were selected were DCF District 1, including Escambia, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa and Walton Counties and DCF District 8, including Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee Counties. FMHI’s role is to help identify the most effective methods and techniques used to manage, integrate, and deliver behavioral health services as specified in the legislation. This report describes the progress achieved during fiscal year (FY) 2001-2002

Creating Alcohol and Other Drug, Trauma, And Mental Health Services For Women in Rural Florida: The Triad Women\u27s Project

Located in central Florida, the Triad Women\u27s Project is a comprehensive system of care developed to respond to the needs of women and children living in a three-county semi-rural area. The women have histories of abuse or violence, co-occurring alcoholism and other drug (AOD) and mental health disorders, and have been high utililizers of behavioral healthcare services. This paper will describe the efforts of collaborating providers, the women themselves, services researchers, and concerned community members to develop services to assist these women in their AOD recovery, their healing from abuse, and their empowerment in dealing with mental illnesses. Practical information on establishing consensus, dealing with barriers and filling service gaps will be presented