The following summarizes recent news coverage of mental health developments in Kansas and Oregon.
Kansas: A dispute between the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services and the regional CMS office in Kansas City, Mo., has caused "millions of federal dollars earmarked for Medicaid patient services" to go unpaid, the AP/Wichita Eagle reports. At issue is $8 million in funding SRS already has received from the federal government. However, SRS will not distribute the funds to state mental health centers until it is assured by CMS audits that the state will not have to repay overpayments, Ray Dalton, SRS deputy secretary for health care policy, said. At least six fiscal quarters have gone unpaid. The delay has resulted in roughly $16 million that will be owed to mental health centers in the state, according to the AP/Eagle. The delay also has caused at least two community mental health centers to close, lay off workers, consolidate or sell off property. Dalton said he anticipates that the situation will be resolved within the next few weeks (Hegeman, AP/Wichita Eagle, 10/3).

Oregon: Trillium Family Services, the state's largest provider of mental health services for children, on Monday announced that it will cut back on the number of children it serves and will lay off 20% of its staff in response to changes in state policy, the Oregonian reports. Trillium will provide residential and community-based care to 3,500 children in 2008, compared to 8,600 beneficiaries last year. According to the Oregonian, in 2005 the state began to shift focus of the children's mental health system to home- and community-based services instead of residential care. The state also changed the way in which it compensated providers, Trillium President Kim Scott said. "The massive reorganization was funded without new dollars," Scott said, adding that the state Department of Human Services is "taking limited resources and trying to spread them across an increasing population of people with increasing problems." Roughly two-thirds of Trillium's beneficiaries in 2006 were enrolled in Oregon's Medicaid program. Ralph Summers, the state's Medicaid policy manager for the addictions and mental health division, said he is confident that other providers will pick up care for beneficiaries who will lose coverage (Cole, Oregonian, 10/2). Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.