Below is a link to information about the Addiction Medicine Conference– including agenda and registration info.

http://addictionmedicine.sa4docs.org/

I tell you this as an opening because eliminating the ability for our licensed staff to continue to bill H Codes in the substance aubse treatment world is going to have a devastating affect on the providers being able to afford to continue to serve these low income and indigient consumers.  Before November 1st, 2011, using H Codes with Licensed Clinicians we were able to offer treatment to these consumers at a rate of $29.80 per hour billed in 15 minute increaments with a very low co-pay so that consumers were able to afford to access treatment.  With the 2.67% rate cut that started on November 1st, followed by the elimination of licensed staff being able to bill H Codes as of Jnuary 1st, 2012, we will only be able to bill $19.05 per event.  This results in a 36.1% hourly rate cut for licensed staff from October 31st, 2011 – January 1st, 2012.  The only way a provider can survive these significant rate cuts will be to significantly increase consumer con-payments, which this population cannot afford, and to stop accepting Medicaid consumers who by law are only allowed to pay a $3 co-payment.  When low-income and indigient substance abuse consumers cannot afford to access treatment, I fear that the savings the State realizes from these cuts will actually cost tax payers more because the consumers will end up in the much higher costing criminal justice and health systems as a result of their continued use of drugs.  And this does not even begin to measure the devastating costs in human lives and families.

Furthermore, during the past 7 years, the standards for being able to bill Medicaid and other government funding for substance abuse treatment services has gone from a minimum of a hight school diploma with experience and training in substance abuse issues at staff salaries of $24,00 – $32,000 per year.  Now the requirement is for Clinician’s to have a Masters Degree and be Licensed, with salary rates at $42,000 – $65,000 per year.  At the same time as the requirments have increased, the reimbursment rates have steadily declined to the point that providers can no longer afford to serve our poorest citizens.  As a provider and an advocate for the poorest consumers in our communities, I ask that you re-visit this decision and either significantly raise the reimbursement rates for Licensed Clinicians, or reinstate the H Codes for Licensed staff to bill at the pre-November 1st rates.>
Kathy Clay, President/CEO
Clay, Wilson & Associates, Inc.
The Cognitive Connection
828-327-6026 Ext. 222
kathy.clay@thecogcon.com

See the following from NC Mental Health Reform blogspot, since 2007 (independent and not employed by anyone, including a private company, such as Daymark, which stands to benefit from moving through the Medicaid Waiver regardless of the problems w/ the way it has been launched at the behest of NC DHHS): from my blog: 
http://madame-defarge.blogspot.com/

FRIDAY, JUNE 03, 2011

WHN LME ‘Goes Its Own Way’ re: Medicaid Waiver: pbH Non-Disclosive Agreement Hoisted Upon LME’s Deemed by UNC Institute of Government to Be ‘Illegal’

SATURDAY, MAY 28, 2011

Medicaid Waiver & Its Permutations as the State Legislature Changes the Language Associated w/ Using Piedmont Behavioral Health LME’s Medicaid Model

SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2011

NC DHHS : Please Do Your Work Re: the Medicaid Waiver Prior to Giving Everyone Else the Work To Do

SATURDAY, MAY 07, 2011

Watergate II or The Borg?:Public Funds Being Used to Create Private Wealth? per NC Medicaid Waiver as Western Highlands Network is Bullied by pbH LME

Marsha V. Hammond, PhD, Licensed Psychologist, NC

I am writing in regard to the SAMSA block grant funds that are currently on the table to be considered for removal. If you only knew how many people are served and get better as the result of having services provided to them, there is no way you would ever vote for a cut in this funding. People are already going without services as the result of so many cuts in the MH/SA field. It is extremely imperative that we are able to continue serving people with Substance Abuse Disorders as well as Mental Health Disorders. If you had no money and your child needed services, there is no way this would even be on the table. Every single person in the United States knows an addict. It is through prevention and treatment that we are able to become functioning members of society again. If there were more funds for these services, the prison system would not require new prisons, yet, that keeps alot of people in jobs, now doesn’t it. How sad that we would rather build new prisons that treat people and educate people so they avoid that lifestyle that ultimately leads to addiction. Sincerely, Rhonda Lazenby, Certified Substance Abuse Counselor, Iredell County, NC

Dr. Wise