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An Organization’s Multidimensional Response to the Economy
When I reflect on the impact of the economy on mental health services, I find it impossible to describe the effect beyond the organization that I manage in Bethlehem, Connecticut. Wellspring is a nonprofit multi-service mental health organization that serves children, adolescents, young adults and...
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Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Share Genetic Roots
A trio of genome-wide studies—collectively the largest to date—have pinpointed a vast array of genetic variation that cumulatively may account for at least one third of the genetic risk for schizophrenia. One of the studies traced schizophrenia and in part, to the same chromosomal...
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The Economy’s Effect on People: A Peer Perspective
With the current economic recession our society has developed more fears about day to day life and what the future may hold than in recent memory. This translates into volumes for people who may require mental health treatment as well as community support services. Mental health services are...
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The Economy’s Impact on Vocational Services
Traditionally, behavioral health patients have been referred for vocational counseling because their illness has formed a barrier to obtaining and maintaining employment. Patients may have presented with ambivalence about entering the work force, or fears that their treatment may interfere with the...
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What to Say When Your Friend is Fired
Given the current economic climate, most of us know someone who has lost a job since the start of the recession. Last January, the Washington Post reported that 2.1 million workers were fired last year in massive layoffs (affecting 50 or more workers), the second-highest figure since U.S....
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The NYSPA Report – Outpatient Mental Health Clinic Reimbursement Reform
The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) has embarked upon a far-ranging project to reform outpatient mental health clinic programs and the Medicaid reimbursement methodology which supports them. A particular target of this reform process is the elimination of the COPs add-on. COPs (short...
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NYS OMH Engaged in Mental Health Services Restructuring
New York State is engaged in a multi-year initiative to restructure the way the State delivers and reimburses publicly supported mental health services. Over the past 50 years, New York’s public mental health system evolved from one dominated by large State psychiatric hospitals serving tens of...
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Comparative Effectiveness Research: An Introduction
On February 17, 2009, within a month of his inauguration, President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, the $787 billion economic package meant to stabilize and stimulate the nation’s economy. Contained within the Act was $1.1 billion dollars...
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OMH’s Mental Health Services Restructuring: A Commentary
The Coalition of Behavioral Health Agencies has been gratified to be an active participant in the stakeholder process established and nurtured by the New York State Office of Mental Health (SOMH). For close to five years, we have maintained that restructuring of clinic reimbursement and attendant...
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Our Economy’s Effect on New York State’s Mental Health Budget
One can hardly turn on a television or listen to the radio without coming across some discussion of our present economic times. Terms like financial tsunami and economic disaster are cavalierly bandied about as ways of describing where our economy presently stands. With unemployment rates reaching...
