HHS Launching Council to Address Mental Health, Substance Use Issues

WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is launching a Behavioral Health Coordinating Council to address the mental health and substance use disorders that have increased during the pandemic, Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, MD, said Tuesday.

The council’s primary goal “is to facilitate collaborative, innovative, transparent, equitable, action-oriented approaches to addressing the nation’s behavioral health needs,” Levine said on a Zoom call with reporters. “This council will be comprised of senior leadership from across HHS operating and staff divisions … Establishing a new behavioral health Coordinating Council will assure that right and correct prioritization guidelines are in place to provide pathways to prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery services.” Levine will co-chair the council along with Tom Coderre, Acting Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use.

The pandemic has really taken a toll on Americans’ mental health and led to increased numbers of substance use disorders, Levine said. “More than 90,000 drug overdose deaths have occurred in the United States from September 2019 to September 2020, about 20,000 more than in the same period the year before, according to recent preliminary data from the CDC.”

In addition, the CDC also found that “symptoms of anxiety were approximately three times those reported in the second quarter of 2019,” she said. “And those for depression were approximately four times that reported in the second quarter of 2019.”

The council, which will meet three times a year, will be “really a ‘whole of department’ approach that is going to involve every staff and operating division in the department,” Levine told MedPage Today. “We’re going to really look at all aspects of issues in terms of mental health, as well as substance use disorders.”

As for what the council would be doing, Levine said she was particularly interested in “that intersection between medical issues, physical health issues, and behavioral health issues. So we’re looking forward to working with HRSA [the Health Resources and Services Administration] in terms of expanding and integrating behavioral health into physical health settings as they have done in many federally qualified health centers.” Other topics of interest will include expansion of substance abuse prevention efforts, increasing the use of naloxone for opioid overdoses, and “‘opioid stewardship’ — working with the medical community to prescribe opioids more carefully and judiciously,” she said.

The council also will look at workforce issues, since “we know that we have gaps in the workforce,” said Coderre, who noted in his opening remarks that he has been a recovering substance user for 18 years. “We’re really excited about bringing everyone together from 20-some different parts of our department to coordinate our response and have everybody rowing in the same direction.”

Coderre also gave details on the distribution of $3 billion in behavioral health funding that is being made available through the American Rescue Plan passed by Congress. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is distributing $1.5 billion of that funding through its Community Mental Health Services Block Grant (MHBG) program and the other $1.5 billion through its Substance Abuse Block Grant (SABG) program.

“The MHBG will be used for a variety of treatment and recovery services for children with serious emotional disturbance and adults with serious mental illness, and funding for the SABG will be used to plan, carry out and evaluate prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery support services for individuals, families and communities impacted by substance use,” he said. “The supplements to the block grants triple the amount of money available to help people who are suffering from mental and substance use disorders.”

The block grants will help states provide mental health and substance abuse treatment services in hard-to-reach areas as well as underserved communities and other marginalized populations, Coderre said.

The MHBG “enables states and territories to provide comprehensive community mental health services, which address needs and gaps in existing treatment services for adults with serious mental illness, and for children with serious emotional disturbances,” he continued. “The MHBG allocation requires states to set aside 10% of their allocation for first-episode psychosis or early serious mental illness programs, and SAMHSA is recommending that states also set aside 5% for crisis services.”

In addition, “SAMHSA is also encouraging use of the Mental Health Block Grant funding to develop or strengthen partnerships with the emerging national suicide prevention lifeline’s state call centers, as the hotline moves toward the ‘988’ [hotline] launch in July 2022,” said Coderre. Other funding areas that SAMHSA wants to encourage through these grants include:

• Partnerships with law enforcement agencies to better manage crisis response
• A comprehensive, 24/7 “crisis continuum” for children that includes screening and assessment, mobile crisis response, and stabilization
• Increased outpatient access, including same-day or next-day appointments for people in mental health crisis
• An electronic registry of treatment beds and a treatment locator system to help people access information on crisis bed facilities

The SABG funding “will allow recipients to make investments in the existing addiction services infrastructure, promote support for providers, and address unique local needs to deliver SUD [substance use disorder] services,” said Coderre. “We also are encouraging strengthening or expansion of the use of FDA-approved medication and digital therapeutics, as part of addiction treatment that can provide interactive, evidence-based behavioral health therapies for the treatment of opioid, alcohol, and tobacco use disorders.”

“These are the kinds of improvements SAMHSA’s grant funding, in partnership with states and providers, can facilitate,” he concluded. “Together, we will address the needs of our communities and bring hope for a brighter tomorrow for millions of Americans.”

Last Updated May 19, 2021