Untreated mental illnesses in the United States cost more than $100 billion a year in lost productivity, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Workplace absences due to a mental health disorder or physical illness/injury (such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism or substance abuse) potentially hamper a company’s productivity and bottom line through…
Beacon is dedicated to providing parity communications and support for our clients. Recently, the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Labor (DOL) released several key documents related to the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA). Released as a result of the 21st Century Cures Act, the documents contain new…
Last September during Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, Beacon launched Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training to address the stigma associated with suicide and to empower staff with the tools and information they need to make a meaningful difference for someone considering suicide. MHFA aligns with the tenants of Beacon’s white paper “We Need to Talk…
“He can do wonderful things, and I want to just give him that opportunity. I want him to have a normal life.” “Once she hit the age of 13, instead of calling the ambulance, they were going to call the police and lock her up. And I did not want her to get caught up…
Colorado is the second fastest-growing state in the United States, yet it is sparsely populated compared to its geographical size, ranking it 37th by population density. Like several western states, Colorado’s Rocky Mountain terrain and number of rural communities combined with a statewide shortage of behavioral health professionals present many challenges to mental health care…
On Friday, September 8, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) hosted the Behavioral Health Payment and Care Delivery Innovation Summit. The purpose of the one-day summit was to discuss alternative payment models that improve behavioral health quality and access across the public health delivery system as well…
Every year, more than 41,000 people die by suicide, making it the tenth leading cause of death in U.S. While these statistics are sobering, Suicide Prevention Awareness Month reminds us that dying by suicide is not an inevitability. In fact, for every one person who dies by suicide in the U.S., there are approximately 278…
Connecticut’s ACCESS Mental Health is a state-funded program created to ensure that all youth under 19 years of age, irrespective of insurance coverage, have access to psychiatric and behavioral health services through contact with their primary care providers (PCP). The program is designed to increase PCPs’ behavioral health knowledge base so they can identify and…
Beacon Health Options (Beacon) and the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership (MBHP) partnered with the Massachusetts Housing & Shelter Alliance (MHSA) in a new project called Hospital to Housing. The initiative, which targets chronically homeless Beacon/MBHP members, has overall goals to: reduce hospitalizations and emergency service usage improve health outcomes for high-risk members stabilize members in housing…
From 1999 to 2014, suicide rates increased by 24 percent in the United States, making it the tenth leading cause of death–yet many remain reluctant to talk about it. In Beacon’s third white paper, we share the application of the Zero Suicide framework, a key concept of the 2012 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention that suicide deaths…