Medicaid supports a wide range of behavioral health services for children including residential treatment programs. Given ongoing concerns regarding access to behavioral health services, MACPAC is examining how Medicaid ensures that children and youth with serious behavioral health conditions appropriately access intensive services in residential settings if needed.
This session provided additional context for the Commission’s work on appropriate access to residential treatment services. Staff reviewed a convenience sample of publicly available state and federal reports that describe common barriers to appropriate access to residential services for youth with behavioral health needs. These reports note common challenges in serving youth with certain demographic, clinical, and functional characteristics, as well as difficulty accessing pre- and post-admission home- and community-based services. This work on appropriate access to children’s residential services is the first part of our ongoing focus on children’s behavioral health in this and future analytic cycles.
