Carmen Hooker Odom Kills Mental Health Services
Carmen Hooker Odom killed the mental health system today. On the heels of her irresponsible decision to slash rates without consulting the mental health community, Hooker Odom today made it impossible for providers to survive and for recipients to have access to timely services.
In a memo, the Dept. of Health and Human Services ordered that effective immediately:
1. All new Community Support clients will get only 8 hours authorized - during this time clients must complete 25 pages of paperwork and see a psychiatrist.
2. The paperwork can only be completed by a Community Support "Q", a master's level person or someone of commensurate experience.
3. The paperwork must then go to Value Options, a large insurance company handling all authorizations for the state. Value Options is currently two months behind on authorizations.
4. Authorizations and reauthorizations will come under a new level of scrutiny that has yet to be released.
Clients that began receiving services in the last thirty days can not be seen until services are authorized. This means that thousands of people across the state will lose services tomorrow, or providers will be doing the work for free.
Due to the time it takes to see a psychiatrist to get initial authorization plus the two month backlog at Value Options, clients seeking services may wait three months.
The providers will be reimbursed at the $40/hour slashed rate, making it impossible to pay Master's level people to provide the services.
Without Community Support revenue, agencies will not be able to support our psychiatrists, who always lose money due to already low rates. Psychiatrists will be unavailable very soon.
Carmen Hooker Odom, Mike Easley, and their lackeys are driving the killing blow into the heart of this fragile system, leaving thousands and thousands of people without health care. We're 50th in the nation in per capita mental health spending, and we're first in hospitalizations. You can look for child mortality to rise, crime to rise, jails to fill, hosptials to fill, and remaining providers to be quickly overrun with needy North Carolinians.
Without an enormous public outpouring, this system is toast. My agency is holding an emergency meeting on Thursday morning, where we will likely do away with all Community Support services. We will then lose psychiatrists, cancel our plans to initiate crisis, in-home, and Community Team services.
This is it. This is the endgame. Our legislators, Republican and Democrat alike, aren't doing anything to help.
Follow me into the comments for a list of things you can do, and all suggestions are welcome.
Email me at scrutinyhooligans@yahoo.com if you have any private insights.
- Gordon Smith's blog
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What You Can Do
1. Call the head of your Local Management Entity. Ask them if they will stand with Western Highlands LME in calling for Hooker Odom's dismissal. The LINK is here to find your LME.
2. Call your local newspapers, ask to speak to the editor, and ask whether they plan to join the Asheville Citizen-Times Editorial Board in calling for Hooker Odom's dismissal.
3. Call your representative. Let them know that the mental health community is awaiting a champion. Short of that, let them know that their willingness to get in front of a TV camera and tell the public that the Hooker Odom debacle is unacceptable. Ask them to call for her dismissal or to make any public statement on the matter.
4. Ask your county officials if they're prepared to manage a meltdown of mental health services. Then ask them to call for the dismissal of Carmen Hooker Odom.
5. Ask your city and town councils if they're prepared. Rinse, repeat.
6. Contact your state legislators, and let them know what's going on. Ask for them to speak to media about the situation, to speak to their local mental health providers, to call for hearings, and, of course, to call for Carmen Hooker Odom's dismissal
Tragedy
I still want to know why.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi
Why
I don't know why. But with all things tragic and political, the mantra has always been to follow the money.
What does Odom get out of this? Easley?
More Things You Can Do
Rep. Beverly Earle - 919-715-2530
Rep. Verla Insko - 919-929-6115
Rep. Bob England - 919-733-5749
And, while you're at it, feel free to drop a note to...
Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom - (919-733-4534; fax: 919-715-4645)
Governor Mike Easley - (919-733-4240)
Lt. Governor Bev Perdue - (919-733-7350)
Deputy Director Mark Benton - (919) 855-4100; Fax - (919) 733-6608
Your local newspaper
There's more in the memo
Including heightened levels of scrutiny regarding authorizations
Increased auditing of billers
Increased paperwork for clients and providers
Reduced maximums
As soon as it hits the web, I'll link to it.
Another spur-of-the-moment, turn-on-a-dime, rewrite your business plan without any idea of future changes or reimbursement rates move from Hooker Odom.
She's killing the system, and Easley is letting her.
What can we expect from hearings?
Where's Hackney on all this? Basnight?
Still no word on hearings
Hackney shrugged his shoulders at me when I talked to him two weeks ago, and he's made nary a peep. Basnight? nothing. The only legislators I've seen go public with concerns have been Nesbitt and Thomas.
It won't be long before
The "kills" in your headline refers to an unstable person who needs but can't get help. There will almost certainly be blood on Madame Secretary's hands. Disgusting.
It's the police who will get killed
or end up having to kill someone. A Nesbitt staffer told me police organizations are very concerned.
Here's a couple of older stats:
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.” So enjoy the drama.
Allies
This issue has across-the-aisles support. Thomas and Wiley have expressed particular interest in saving our system. Also, Perdue has been largely absent on this issue, despite the flood of complaints coming into her office. I say let's "Lamont" her for this and hold her to fire of the outrage that's sure to come.