Report

People with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (SUDs) benefit from integrated treatment to address both disorders concurrently. For several decades, policymakers and behavioral health systems have worked to overcome the historical separation between mental health and SUD treatment to improve care for people with co-occurring disorders.

Health Information Technology (HIT) was identified as a critical component of the HHS Roadmap for Behavioral Health Integration. To support the implementation of the Roadmap, an ASPE study was conducted to provide an overview of HIT adoption and utilization among behavioral health providers.

Insufficient access to behavioral health (BH) care and the inability to get timely care are significant problems in the United States. Concerns about BH network adequacy have been prompted by evidence of narrow networks for BH, variation in network adequacy across plans, and evidence that network adequacy impacts access to certain specialties.

IntroductionMeans-tested benefits are designed to support basic needs such as food, health insurance, and child care for households with low incomes. When considering whether to take a new job opportunity that will increase their income, recipients of these benefits may be forced to consider trade-offs. For example:

This second report focuses largely on updating pre-NSA trends in claims data presented in the first report.

This report outlines a feasibility study focused on obtaining identifiers for self-directed Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) users within Medicaid claims data. Financial Management Services (FMS) entities assist individuals in managing the financial aspects of self-directed care, including payroll and billing.

This research report describes patterns in insurance coverage and uninsurance rates in rural and urban areas, reviews non-financial challenges in accessing care faced by many rural residents, and describes disparities in health outcomes between urban and rural areas.

The final summary report on “Developing and Piloting a Federal Evaluation Approach for Complex Cross-Agency Initiatives: The Overdose Prevention Test Case” lays out the findings of HHS effort to test a cross-departmental methodology.

This report outlines the major issues faced by the U.S. health care workforce. It addresses medical, dental and behavioral health components of the workforce as well as direct care workers. The report also describes opportunities for progress to address these issues and existing activities supported by the Department to address these issues.

This guidance, originally published in 2003, contains the following introduction: