If it didn't impact the lives of Marylanders most vulnerable, the recent request for comment by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (are we ever going to move two centuries forward and change that name) would be laughable.
The Mental Hygiene Administration, itself, has been the cause of hundreds of millions of dollars iof unecessary expenses to the state Medicaid budget. Some examples:
- A ten-year moratorium on the development of affordable housing opportunities by community mental health providers that has ultimately driven thousands of individuals to emergency room visits.
- An intense implementation focus on expensive, evidence-based practices that have not been proven to be efficacious in the state and cost the state tens of millions of Medicaid dollars.
- The reduction of psychiatric rehabilitation day program visits for people with severe psychiatric disabilities that has minimized their ability to learn social skills that help them integrate into the community.
These are just a few examples of how an administrative, void of strategic vision, has caused Medicaid expenditures to escalate over the last decade.
Unfortunately, the state provider association and the consumer "advocacy" organization, which is in the pocket of the Mental Hygiene Administration, have been largely ineffective in pushing for the changes that are needed to positively impact the State's Medicaid budget. If the State is truly interested in cutting costs in the Medicaid budget it needs a significant change in the vision, or lack there of, of the leadership of the Mental Hygiene Administration.
