Policy

State, county and local government financial shortfalls are reaching dangerous levels as these entities continue to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With providers feeling a financial impact from COVID-19, a push for a $100 billion federal investment in addiction prevention, treatment and recovery services tops National Council’s action plan.

The Mental Health Liaison Group has asked CMS that the flexibilities around telehealth it enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic be extended one year after the emergency period is declared over to evaluate the potential for certain changes to become permanent.

It is ironic that deinstitutionalization from state psychiatric hospitals and decarceration from city and county jails—major objectives long sought by the behavioral health community—have turned into significant problems in the COVID-19 era.

Advocacy group Shatterproof says a pair of bills introduced in the House that would remove the separate waiver required for prescribing buprenorphine and set baseline requirements around preventing addiction and working with patients with OUD should be revisited in light of COVID-19.

Methamphetamine use and polysubstance use are creating new challenges in the nation’s substance use disorder crisis, Admiral Brett Giroir, MD, assistant secretary of HHS, said on Wednesday.

Three members of Congress expressed cautious optimism about the nation’s drug overdose death rates dropping, but added that neither those numbers nor the COVID-19 crisis are a reason to throttle back the nation’s response now.

The National Association of County Behavioral Health & Developmental Disability Directors held town hall meetings with members to understand the impact of the coronavirus crisis on behavioral healthcare and to identify the urgent needs of the behavioral health field that must be placed before Congress.

Provisions in the recently signed Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act include funds for SAMHSA programs, small business loans and money for investing in telehealth technology.

Times of crisis require bold action. Three recent pieces of legislation reflect the depth of the coronavirus crisis and the dramatic nature of our national response.