- Report by mental health providers calls for increase in funding
- Underfunding, increased demands have led to more homelessness, poverty, incarceration and unnecessary deaths
- Pilot studies to test theory that integration of physical and mental health can save costs, expand care
Increased homelessness, poverty, incarceration and deaths are predicted in Michigan by a new report that concludes there is a $150 million gap between the cost of health care and the funding provided to the state's $2.8 billion-plus public mental health system.
The study, which was commissioned by the Community Mental Health Association of Michigan, outlines several major changes in the population served since the current managed health care funding model was established in 1997.
Besides the opioid crisis — which resulted in more than 1,700 deaths in Michigan in 2016 alone and tens of thousands of addictions — the increased rates of incarceration of those with mental health needs and autism have caused many more problems within the system and society, the report says.
"Michiganders do not face the same mental health and substance use disorder needs that they had 20 years ago," Robert Sheehan, the mental health association's CEO, said in a statement. "There are new demands, new crises and new conditions in every community throughout Michigan, which the original financing structure did not account for. ... yet the system is still operating from a decades-old funding structure. This is the reality that the public mental health system in Michigan has faced for decades.
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"Without moving toward the ambitious vision outlined by the association and addressing this outdated funding structure, Michiganders will continue to live without the mental health care that they need and expect."
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