NASW-NC and The Coalition meet with Secretary Wos

NASW-NC and The Coalition meet with Secretary Wos

The National Association of Social Workers North Carolina Chapter (NASW-NC) and the Executive Committee of The Coalition met with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Aldona Wos and staff on January 22, 2014. The Coalition is an advocacy organization for Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services. The group met with Secretary Wos to discuss priorities outlined by the three subgroups of The Coalition.

The priorities presented were:

From Substance Abuse Federation
Ensure adequate funding and state leadership to support substance use services along the full Behavioral Health Continuum of Care Model

• Increase state-level funding for primary prevention strategies.
• Coordinate state efforts across divisions to enhance integration of prevention services.
• Improve and integrate information technology systems and collect timely, reliable, and accurate data around performance measures and outcomes.
• Increase state-level funding treatment of substance use disorders.

Provide mandated enforcement of federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act regulations

• It is of paramount importance that a parity advisory committee be convened immediately, which consists of the Department of Insurance, DHHS, and providers of substance use disorder and mental health services.
• Proper mechanisms for clarifying enforcement authority and responsibilities, establish compliance protocols and meet mandated standards requiring compliance documentation, and provide public education about parity protections.

From Mental Health Coalition
Pilot Case Management

• Case Management needs to be flexible, and it is especially needed to achieve the new challenges of integrating primary and behavioral healthcare.
• Our system has gotten incredibly complex, and perhaps this is the very argument to re-introduce case management- people need help finding the providers that they need to help them get well.

Ensuring people receive only the services/supports they need, and are discharged or stepped down as their recovery strengthens.

• The incentives do not exist for the providers to phase out the provision of services or to step people down to less restrictive services

Expand low cost services that achieve effective health outcomes and wellness.

From Developmental Disabilities Consortium

• Move to an outcome based and flexible service delivery system.
• MCO Consolidation – complete in a timely, yet managed way to ensure least disruption of services and the system
• Standardize Business practices and eliminate redundancy
• Ensure more individuals with IDD receive services
• Ensuring there are accurate assessment and resource allocation tools to assure that people are receiving the right service at the right time, and improve budgetary forecasting, moving the system to a less reactive and move proactive delivery.

NASW-NC staff member Kay Castillo serves as The Coalition’s Vice Chair and Treasurer. The Coalition will continue to meet quarterly with the Secretary and her staff to discuss issues from all three disability groups.

NASW-NC serves on a variety of Coalition groups on behalf of NASW-NC members. For other Coalition groups NASW-NC is involved in, click here.