As Bernalillo County works to expand its behavioral health services, it’s looking into how to better tap Medicaid as a funding source. The county manager said her team isn’t there yet, but is committed to making it happen.
When the county provides behavioral health care that’s covered by Medicaid, it pays for it out of its own pocket using tax revenue. That also happens when one of the providers it contracts with is also not set up to bill the insurance for patients with low incomes. Nearly 266,000 county residents are on the insurance, according to the state Human Services Department.
A working group charged with improving the county’s behavioral health initiative recommended this week that it take more advantage of Medicaid funds. Member and former CEO of the state’s Behavioral Health Collaborative Bryce Pittenger explained the idea to the county commission.
“Part of what you’re doing is supporting a system of care with gross receipts tax dollars — expensive dollars compared to Medicaid dollars, which every $0.25 the state pays we get $0.75 from the feds,” she said.
Bernalillo County Manager Julie Morgas Baca said the county needs to get more of its contractors set up to accept the public insurance, but also intends to become a Medicaid provider itself.
“But it’s a lot more complicated than I ever thought it was,” she told KUNM. “So, we are going to have to hire experts that can help us and guide us.”
One of those experts may be the new deputy county manager for behavioral health. Morgas Baca said several applicants know their stuff around Medicaid and she hopes to hire by August 1.
“But we’re going to have to have more than that,” she said.
She envisions also hiring several people whose sole focus is making the county a Medicaid provider and training its staff on the changes.
She said that while she doesn’t yet have a sense of when the county will start getting reimbursed by Medicaid, doing so is “urgent.”
“Because if we are able to access the [Medicaid] funds, then our funds go further, right? So, it’s on the frontburner for sure,” she said.
As for getting more of the providers it works with on board, Senior Program Manager for the Bernalillo County Behavioral Health Initiative and working group member Pam Acosta told the commission that the county needs to assist them.
“You have so many providers that don’t have the bandwidth, don’t have the staffing, don’t have the capacity,” she said. “And if we could lift that burden to get them moving — eventually, with their Medicaid reimbursements, they can start to hire that Medicaid biller in their department.”
Pittenger said the work won’t be easy and suggested the county develop a 3-year plan to get it done.
