HHS: 10 states joining Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic Medicaid Demonstration Program  

More states will receive Medicaid funding for all-in-one mental health and substance use clinics offering 24-hour crisis services.  

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Tuesday that a newish model of the clinic, called certified community behavioral health clinics, in 10 states will now be eligible to receive Medicaid reimbursements under the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic Demonstration Program.  

“This is a game changer for so many Americans,” Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a phone call with reporters. “Just as 988 is saving so many lives, these new 10 additional CCBHCs are going to save lives even more.” 

The demonstration program was created and then applied to a handful of states after the passage of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act in 2014. But as the contended with a raging mental health crisis after the COVID-19 pandemic, program was then expanded as part of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.  

Now, CCHBCs in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont can receive Medicaid funding in addition the original program member states.  

Beginning in July, CCHBCs in ten more states will become eligible for Medicaid reimbursements every two years as part of the expansion to the demonstration program provided under the Safer Communities Act.  

CCHBCs are meant to offer a range of mental health and substance use services to anyone seeking care regardless of condition, age, ability to pay or housing status.

These clinics are required to directly provide or partner with another organization to provide nine types of services, according to the National Council of Mental Wellbeing, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit organization that has helped with CCHBCs.  

Some of these services include offering 24-hour mobile crisis teams, emergency crisis intervention and outpatient mental health and substance use disorders.  

About 3 million Americans are already receiving care at a CCHCS, according to the National Council of Mental Wellbeing.  

Almost 80 percent of clinics reporting serving more people after becoming a CCBHC and 87 percent of CCHBCs report offering one or more forms of medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder compared to 64 percent of substance use treatment facilities overall, according to the nonprofit.