Financing and Medicaid Division

The Financing and Medicaid Division (FMD) of NASMHPD is established to support NASMHPD on issues relating to financing mental health services in the states.  Because Medicaid provides significant financial support for mental health services, Medicaid legislation, rules, and budget will be a central focus of the Division.  The Division provides its members with the opportunity to exchange ideas and information on financing mental health services for both children and adults.  It evaluates the impact of changes in financing on the quality and accessibility of mental health services.  

In 2007, the NASMHPD Commissioners established the Financing and Medicaid Division by transferring the Adult Services Division and assigning its work related to financing to the new Division.  The primary focus of the Division is to enhance NASMHPD’s influence on financing issues through policy analysis, information sharing, and advocacy.  At the federal level, the Division will seek to impact the policies and programs of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), especially those services that provide significant financial support to the states for mental health services such as Medicaid’s rehabilitation and case management programs.  The Medicare benefit for mental health as well as financing for Part D prescription drugs, partial hospitalization, and other programs also will be a focus of the Division.  In addition, the Division will address other federal programs that provide flexible funding and serve to leverage other resources (e.g., the maintenance of effort requirements of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s  Mental Health Block Grant Program). 

The Division will address topics immediately relevant to state mental health authorities and will concentrate its work plan on the action steps necessary for states to implement high priority topics within the President’s New Freedom Commission Report.  It will identify financing strategies that encourage the development of community treatment systems and foster an array of services in the most cost-effective and appropriate settings.  The Division will address ways for mental health departments to forge cooperative and productive working relationships with the states’ Medicaid offices and other units of state government that finance mental health services. 

The FMD will examine financing strategies to develop, expand, and stabilize community support services for people with serious mental illness as well as funding strategies for prevention and early intervention to reduce the burden of mental disorders in our population. 

Since many of the issues addressed by the Financing and Medicaid Division are of direct significance to the day-to-day operations of state mental health authorities, the FMD maintains a close working relationship with agency directors and commissioners through its Commissioner Division Advisor and also acts as a networking facilitator for issues which cut across NASMHPD’s divisions.

Member Search

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Leadership

Chairperson:
Vacant

NASMHPD Commissioner Division Advisor:
Virginia Trotter Betts, M.S.N., J.D., (TN)

NASMHPD Division Administrator:
Elizabeth Prewitt
Director of Government Relations
NASMHPD
66 Canal Center Plaza,
Suite 302
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
703-739-9333
Fax: 703-548-9517
elizabeth.prewitt@nasmhpd.org