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July 31, 2007Topics: Health Insurance for Direct Care Staff in Mental Health Programs Letter to Governor Spitzer on Health Insurance for Direct Care Staff Information about the MHANYS October Awards Dinner and Conference highlighting the transition needs of 16—24 year olds (October 25th and 26th at the Albany Marriott)
Health Insurance for Direct Care Staff in Licensed Mental Health Programs One of the priority policy areas for MHANYS has been workforce issues. We have been working closely with our colleagues at the New York State Rehab Association (NYSRA) and NYAPRS to further the cause of funding for direct care staff in community based mental health programs. An area that has been identified as priority from many of our members and our colleagues is around the issue of health insurance. There is an initiative at the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD) that helps underwrite the health insurance cost of direct care staff in their licensed programs. We have heard very positive things about the program and though the funding is limited, it does help incentivize good staff to stay in direct care. We strongly believe that this health insurance funding should also be available for direct care staff in mental health. We are aware that it will be difficult in this current environment to get additional funding in the budget this year for mental health. It is our job as advocates to continue to make the case that having quality staff stay in positions of trust serves two essential purposes---A) most importantly, it enhances individual recovery. One of the most significant quality indicators of recovery is the relationship that is developed between the staff person (including peers) and the recipient. Yet with the high turnover rate, it becomes virtually impossible to continue that relationship. B) Incentivizing funding for direct care staff saves the state money. Without quality staff, many people will fall through the cracks and end up in much more costly settings such as jail, prison, homeless shelters or emergency rooms. We will need your advocacy to help us convince the administration that the time has come to have the state provide a health insurance subsidy for direct care staff in mental health licensed programs. Attached below is a letter that we just sent to Governor Spitzer, asking for his assistance in getting funding in the budget for health insurance for direct care staff in community based mental health agencies.
July 27, 2007 The
Honorable Eliot Spitzer Dear Governor Spitzer: Thank you very much for the help of your administration in recognizing many of the needs of individuals with mental illness through your enhancements in the budget for housing, children’s services, COLA’s for human service staff and several other initiatives. We are also appreciative of your work around the SHU bill negotiations. This will be a very positive step for individuals with psychiatric disabilities in prisons. Impact of Direct Care Staff One of the major issues that we continue to face in the mental health system is the ability to maintain a stable and productive workforce. With the leadership of Michael Hogan as mental health commissioner, we look forward to many promising new initiatives. However as we know developing systems change is important, but if you don’t have the workforce in place to run the programs than even the best and most innovative programs are doomed to failure. Direct care staff in the mental health field is frequently paid minimum wage. Though working in the mental health field is incredibly rewarding and most people are in the field to help change lives, a livable wage must be a reality in order to create a stable workforce. Many agencies have turnover rates of upwards of 40%. Ironically, the leading researchers in the field credit the most important part of an individual’s recovery process as coming from the therapeutic relationship that they develop with a clinician, peer or case manager. Yet when you have a high turnover rate, it is virtually impossible to maintain that relationship. Save State Money Funding for these programs save the state money as well. With a stable work force, people with mental illness are much more likely to remain in community based programs. This translates into cost savings by keeping people out of prison, jail, homelessness or emergency rooms. Funding for the workforce is a win for everyone from the staff, the recipient of mental health services and the taxpayers. We urge your administration to take the steps necessary to work with us to begin the framework for enhancing the community based mental health workforce in New York State. Health Insurance for Direct Care Staff in Mental Health The Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities has an innovative program that provides licensed agencies with stipends that will help defray the cost of individual health insurance. Over the last two years, over $60 million has been provided for health care insurance. We think that this is a wonderful program and one that needs to be replicated in the mental health arena as well. Many mental health agencies are either unable to offer insurance coverage or offer only minimal coverage. A state subsidy to help defray the cost of health insurance for direct care staff in mental health programs would provide a strong incentive for the workforce to stay in the field. We are requesting that there be funding added in the state budget that would go to provider agencies to help defray the cost of health insurance coverage for direct care staff that is comparable to what has been provided to OMRDD licensed programs. OMH can follow the successful standards and outcome measures from OMRDD to insure that this funding reaches direct care staff. This measure would also provide and enhance health insurance to many folks who do not always receive health insurance benefits. This is consistent with your policy agenda of universal health care for all New Yorkers. After the promise of reinvestment in the mid 90’s was broken (with hundreds of millions of dollars lost to the community mental health system), the funding for community based care was also broken. We continue to pay the price in New York by the number of people with mental illness who are homeless, in jail or prison and in our emergency rooms. The best way to begin to stem that tide is to enhance funding for direct care staff including peers who are in recovery from their illness. We urge your help by including funding in the budget for health insurance subsidies for direct care staff in the mental health field. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Sincerely,
MHANYS CONFERENCE INFORMATION: The Mental Health Association in New York State, Inc. SAVE THE DATES Annual
Awards Dinner: Annual
Conference: This
year’s conference will feature the topic: Join us for both events at the Albany Marriott on Wolf Road For MHANYS’ conference news updates, please visit www.MHANYS.org
In the News:
Spitzer
Signs Bill To Help Prisoners Re-Enter Society Gov. Eliot Spitzer has signed legislation that will suspend rather than terminate Medicaid benefits for prisoners while they are incarcerated so they can re-enter society without having to wait two to three months for benefits to restart. The legislation is being hailed by advocates, who have been pushing it for about 10 years, and the New York State Association of Counties. "The initiative's been pushed for years and we've always made the argument that this is a cost saver," said Glenn Liebman, head of the Mental Health Association of New York State. "It's one of those bills that's been around forever that were so logical and made sense and yet never happened." Stephen Acquario, executive director of the Association of Counties, said the new law gives former inmates access to health care and mental-health treatment, "two of the tools they need to stay out of jail and become productive members of their community." "It costs considerably less - in taxpayer dollars and in social capital - to provide health-care treatment and mental-health service than it does to fund the revolving door of recidivism into our county jails," he said in a statement. The legislation is one of more than 200 the governor has signed or vetoed in recent days. The daily cost for housing an inmate in a local jail range from $291 in New York City to more than $100 for counties outside the city, according to the Association of Counties. Counties and New York City house hundreds of inmates awaiting transfer state prisons, representing a total of $38 million in annual expenses for counties, the group said. Currently, New York terminates Medicaid benefits to prevent fraud, the bill's sponsors, Assemblyman Keith Wright, D-Manhattan, and Sen. Kemp Hannon, R-Nassau County, said in a memo supporting the legislation. Federal law prohibits using Medicaid funds for health-care services in correctional facilities, but it does allow for suspending them. Even people who spend a few days in jail can have their Medicaid benefits terminated, the sponsors said. The federal government pays half the cost of Medicaid, with state and local governments splitting the rest. Even with a process aimed at expediting the application process prior to release, there are still significant lag times before benefits are reinstated, the memo said, and re-enrollment adds administrative work to the system. A large percentage of prison inmates are poor and eligible for Medicaid, and many suffer from health and substance-abuse problems, such as HIV, psychiatric conditions, drug and alcohol addiction and chronic ailments like diabetes and asthma, Wright and Hannon said. Among New York City inmates, 70 percent have a history of substance abuse, 20 percent require detoxification upon admission, 40 percent require mental-health services, and 8 percent of males and 18 percent of females are HIV-positive. A recent study by Hunter College found that in the year after being released from a New York City jail, women with Medicaid coverage were more likely to participate in a residential drug-treatment program and less likely to be rearrested. Of the bills Spitzer signed, a number of them are crime-related. They include making cemetery desecration a felony; increasing the penalty for failing to register as a sex offender from a Class A misdemeanor to a felony; creating the crimes of aggravated vehicular assault and aggravated vehicular homicide for intoxicated drivers; and providing prison inmates and persons calling them with cheaper telephone rates. Others are school-related - laws that request students entering school to present dental-health certificates; increase the amount of surplus operating funds school boards can maintain; and require that children riding in small vans used as school buses wear seat belts. One bill makes retroactive to Jan. 1, 2003, Jonathan's Law, passed earlier this year to allow parents access to reports relating to abuse and maltreatment of children in residential treatment. The change will allow the parents of Jonathan Carey, a mentally retarded boy who died while in residential care this year, access to records. He also signed bills that will: - Allow two or more towns that border each other within the same county to establish one town court. - Authorize payment of a $250 war bonus to members of the merchant marine who served in World War II and their un-remarried surviving spouses. Among those he vetoed were bills that would have: - Provided benefits or binding arbitration to unions, restricted the time employers could respond to employee disputes arising out of collective bargaining, and made it improper public-employee practice not to provide the employee the right to representation by the employee organization when the employee appears to be the subject of a potential disciplinary action. - Establish an office of taxpayer advocate, which he said would give the advocate powers that would "severely impair the ability of the Tax Department to accomplish its core mission." |
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