Letter to the Editor: Support Needed for Behavioral Health

Letter to the Editor: Support Needed for Behavioral Health

It was recently announced that New York’s hospitals and nursing homes will receive approximately $675 million for Medicaid rate increases to cover workforce salary and benefits. Leaders from New York’s community-based primary care, home care, and behavioral healthcare workforce are asking for a similar investment, requesting that approximately $169 million be directed toward healthcare workers who touch the lives of millions of New Yorkers every day by providing community based services.

This investment is needed to address rising job vacancies and turnover rates that have resulted in a full scale access to care crisis for community-based primary care, home care, and mental health and substance use disorder services. Paid training, retention bonuses, and similar incentives are desperately needed in the face of workforce shortages, including psychiatrists, nurses, licensed clinical social workers and credentialed substance use counselors, for agencies addressing the public health care crises of increasing suicide and opioid overdose rates, a growing number of children in homeless shelters, and rising incarceration rates due to mental health and substance use issues. We are approaching a crisis situation with workforce shortages that is resulting in limited access to more intensive mental health treatment options in many communities.

Diane E. Russo

CEO, CoveCare Center

Carmel, NY

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Submitted by Carmel, NY

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