BATON ROUGE, La. (KALB) – May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and earlier this week, the Louisiana Department of Health announced a plan to expand Medicaid reimbursement eligibility to provisionally licensed mental health professionals while they are seeking full licensure.
Those professionals include, but are not limited to, therapists, counselors, mental health clinicians and behavioral health clinicians.
The policy change, according to LDH, is for mental health professionals without licensure to obtain reimbursement from the Medicaid program as they are working toward full licensure.
Robyn McDermott, LDH’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Behavioral Health, said the department aims to make these services more available for residents who may not have access to assessment, evaluation and psychotherapy types of treatments.
“It gives them the opportunity to have that, which moves in the direction of improving our health outcomes here in Louisiana,” she said.
Much like the rest of the country, Louisiana faces challenges in the behavioral health workforce profession. Approximately 26 percent of mental health needs are met in Louisiana, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration.
“This Mental Health Awareness Month is every day. It’s not just one month,” Rob Wright, Psychology Department Chair at LSUA. “We really work to prepare students to go out into the workforce or to go be mental health professionals so they can help other people. But the reality is, if we’re not being successful in our own mental health, we’re not being successful in our jobs.”
“It’s very important to be aware of the stress, trauma and potential for burnout on our jobs and connect that to emotional health, physical well-being and mental well-being,” said Cynthia Thomas, Associate Professor of Psychology and Provost Fellow at LSUA.
According to LDH, rule changes and a state plan amendment would need to take place before the policy goes into full effect. LDH expects the final rule to publish on July 20 with full implementation expected to begin on August 1, if the changes are approved by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“I would encourage residents to contact their managed care organizations, their health plans that help provide them with care coordination and things of that nature,” McDermott said.
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