WHNT News 19 at 5:00 p.m.by David KumbrochFebruary 4, 2015
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. [WHNT] – Alabama Psychiatric Services confirms it will end services on February 13, 2015. It cites a decrease in funding from Blue Cross/Blue Shield and a change in how the insurance company covers behavorial health services as the reason for the closure. An employee at the Madison facility confirmed the closure earlier today, as did several patients. The Madison employee tells us the closure of APS’ statewide offices could impact as many as 200,000 patients. In north Alabama, APS also has facilities in Cullman, Decatur and Florence. The Madison location is on Lanier Road off Hughes Road. The company posted this message on apsy.com on Wednesday afternoon:
“After over thirty years of service to our clients for their behavioral health needs, APS will be ending services on Friday, February 13, 2015. It has been our privilege to have offered services to our clients across Alabama, and to have been a critical part of the behavioral health service delivery system across our great state. At the request of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, we opened offices throughout Alabama. Unfortunately, due to a decrease in funding from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama and a change in its model of providing behavioral health, we are not able to continue our mission. We would have liked to have given both our patients and our employees more notice of our closure, but this was not possible under the circumstances. APS is making every effort to provide care and transition patients to other providers and our own providers who join or develop their own practices. APS is cooperating fully with other organizations to facilitate the resolution of this intense period.”
A major resource lost from my wife’s hometown area. This is the inevitable consequence of the state of medical reimbursement for mental health services these days. I’m surprised it’s taken so long to arrive, particularly in poor states with ultra-conservative legislatures and impoverisheding Medicaid and third party systems. Programs training mental health workers in these areas [like where I live now] would do well to only accept applicants who are independently wealthy do-gooders…
Hey, this is parity at its finest brought to by politicians by in large, and Obamacare specifically. Spin it however you want, discrimination and avoidance of the needs and effective impact of mental health care concerns is alive and intent on killing off mentally ill people, and, oh, their advocates as well.
Just like the Democrats as a party want to not only abandon Israel, but find a way to help the Islamic terrorists kill them first, and hope that appeases such evil slime to not then come after America.
And the majority of people who could make a difference just sit back and shrug, saying almost word for word here, ” I forgot the part where that’s my problem.”
Today Alabama, tomorrow maybe your state???
Perhaps if Alabama would expand MEDICAID they’d have an easier time taking care of the poor mental health patients who are now being dumped into the fray while other services scramble to take them on.
According to a Montgomery news article, “At the request of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, we opened offices throughout Alabama. Unfortunately, due to a decrease in funding from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama and a change in its model of providing behavioral health, we are not able to continue our mission.”
http://www.wsfa.com/story/28025692/major-provider-of-al-mental-health-services-to-close
Did that nasty ‘ol President ruin Alabama Psychiatric Services relationship with Blue Cross/Blue Shield? He ruins everything. The ACA has expanded mental health coverage—
The Affordable Care Act builds on the Mental Health Parity and Addictions Equity Act to expand mental health and substance use disorder benefits and federal parity protections for more than 60 million Americans. New health plans are now required to cover preventive services like depression screenings for adults and behavioral assessments for children at no additional cost. And starting next year, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny health care coverage to anyone because of a pre-existing mental health condition.
http://www.mentalhealth.gov/blog/2014/01/affordable-care-act-expanding-mental-health-coverage.html
Diminishing, dismissing, or ignoring the fact that so many people had been previously unable to get any health insurance, at all, because they had been given a psychiatric label, seems to me to belittle the plight of people suffering from mental disabilities or distress or labels that deny them affordable medical care. At least, those people who can afford insurance can get it now, but people who can’t are f*cked. It seems to me that that should be a concern to any psychiatrists who want people with mental health problems to get adequate care.
Also, Alabama has a strong tendency to under-fund social services:
… state funding accounts for only about 12 percent of the Department of Mental Health’s budget. The largest portion comes from the federally funded Medicaid and Medicare programs, but that money is heavily earmarked, he said.
http://www.annistonstar.com/news/article_6ebf38a6-774a-11e4-8d6a-2b38148769fa.html
Services must be paid for, as you know Dr. Hassman. States that don’t fund mental health services get exactly what they asked for— poor and reduced services. Stamping feet and shaking fists at “Big Gubmint” and the President while refusing to engage in MEDICAID expansion is a Pyrrhic victory, which is par for the course for people so ideologically reactionary that they’d prefer lose/lose situations when given a choice to score points with other hotheads.
Well, I live in Maryland, and I don’t see anyone here prioritizing mental health care in the way they allege in the ongoing feigned dialogues and pontificating that goes on. No one really wants to face the honest and tough discussion that is going on especially since, how was it put above, “that nasty ‘ol President “, has been in power. Obamacare is not going to help the public as it’s real intent and purpose takes hold, interestingly, after 2016 when the owner per name leaves office. This partisan BS by both sides of the extremist aisle of Republocrats is not going to benefit mental health participants, patients and clinicians, and this article above by Dr Nardo is the tip of the iceberg.
I have been blogging for over 2 years, and I really know in my heart no one has the courage or conviction to discuss what really is behind the intrusions and disruptions in mental health care. Simple for me, antisocial agenda.
I am beginning to feel like the Mel Gibson character in the movie “Conspiracy Theory”, and link the Wikipedia site to educate readers not aware of the premise. Yeah, sounds absurd, but, I think there is such a pervasive element of those who are just out to profit and prey on those with mental health problems, well, managed care certainly laid the groundwork back in the 90s for the real impetus to take hold these last 10 years now.
that link noted above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_Theory_%28film%29
Hey, just my opinion…
It wasn’t always that way in Alabama [History] but it really tanked [Decline] and has been low ever since – though surprisingly, it’s near the top in mental health spending among the Southern States.
See also A Q&A On Achieving Mental Health Parity In Medicaid Managed Care.
Were the Surgeon General to rule that mental/emotional stress is a health issue that doesn’t need to be a “disease” to warrant treatment (because humans are social animals in a complex society) and require insurance companies to treat it as such, then perhaps we could cut the Gordian Knot of contortions that psychiatrists have to put people through to get their pay, and other professionals can find ways to provide help to people better or in addition to psychiatry, especially where people in florid psychosis are concerned.