New Initiative To Create Healthcare Home for Medicaid Recipients/Uninsured

Tri-County Mental Health Services is preparing to create Healthcare Homes for more than 500 Medicaid, uninsured or underserved residents of the Northland who face serious and persistent mental health conditions and co-occurring physical disorders.

A Healthcare Home is a place where individuals can come throughout their lifetime to have their healthcare needs identified and to receive the medical, behavioral and related social services and supports they need. These services are coordinated so that they are recognized as individuals, not just patients.

Several steps are needed, including a designation application and, most importantly, recruitment of key personnel such as new nurses, physician leader and health home director. The program is also expected to help apply similar health care principles to all Tri-County Consumers.

“We will look to train our executive team and relevant staff in the agency to embrace the principles of the Healthcare Home,” CEO Tom Cranshaw said. “That means embracing an agency-wide culture toward the integration of health prevention and treatment. It means promoting person-centered care, comprehensive care management and care coordination.” Other concepts include principles of wellness, nutrition, exercise and appropriate screening. The system will also utilize both Tri-County’s internal electronic health record system and the Missouri’s electronic system to track health care conditions, utilization patterns, and consumer outcomes with a focus upon both quality and cost effectiveness.

Healthcare Homes were authorized by the 2010 Affordable Care Act as an effective mechanism for improving services for people with co-occurring disorders and enhancing use of Medicaid funding. States are encouraged to enroll people with two or more chronic conditions in order to optimize the coordinated care of these conditions.

An estimated 70 percent of people with co-occurring disorders have at least one chronic health problem, 45 percent have two, and nearly 30 percent have three or more. Providing integrated services to meet their primary and behavioral health needs is essential. The healthcare home model aims to gather services for these individuals under one umbrella, reducing acute episodic health events, sharing collaborative treatment, and easing access to care.

Key personnel needed for the program are a healthcare home manager, a clinical administrative assistant, a healthcare home physician consultant and a nurse care manager/health coach.

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