March 18, 2019
Improving services that address care to children with the highest level needs in the system and working to bring these services in line with a whole person care approach is the goal of a new i2i collaborative project. i2i will facilitate work with a group of LME-MCOs and PRTFs to address standardized performance measures for psychiatric residential treatment (PRTF) facility services. Psychiatric Residential Treatment is one of the most expensive and restrictive levels of care for children. It is important to demonstrate that these services are clinically effective, achieve outcomes, and are cost effective.
The plan is to work with representatives of the LME-MCOs and PRTFs currently involved in a state pilot project that pairs one LME-MCO with a PRTF for a variety of work projects. For this project, i2i will conduct individual interviews with each of the 14 organization representatives as a precursor to a workgroup. Performance measures will be considered in the context of current issues, including value-based care, state and federal statutory changes that directly affect children’s mental health services including the Families First Act, and the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act that raises the age of minors convicted of felonies, and federal changes to standards for the Department of Social Services on congregate care.
The goals of this effort are to improve LME/MCO – PRTF communication, develop performance measures/dashboards, identify value-based care models that could be used for PRTF services, and the identification of policy issues to be addressed to implement changes.
The i2i Center has been engaged by the Division of MH/DD/SAS for this project and Executive Director Mary Hooper said, “We are pleased to have the opportunity to facilitate the movement of such a critical service toward value-based improvements.”