New Study from Center for Healthcare Research and Innovation Documents Dramatic Cost Savings
(LANSING, Mich. – March 21, 2017) – The Center for Healthcare Research and Innovation, the research arm of the Michigan Association of Community Mental Health Boards (MACMHB) today released a new study underscoring the cost-effectiveness of Michigan’s behavioral health system.
The study, titled Bending the Healthcare Cost Curve: The success of Michigan’s public mental health system in achieving sustainable healthcare cost control, details the monetary and health-quality savings that the state of Michigan has realized from its public mental healthcare system. This study can be found at: https://www.macmhb.org/sites/default/files/attachments/files/Bending%20the%20cost%20curve-rev.pdf
Critical components from the report included:
• When compared against Medicaid rate increase in the rest of the country, Michigan’s public mental health system saved over $5 billion dollars ($5,273,089,686) since 1998, when this public system became the managed care organization for the state’s Medicaid mental health, intellectual/developmental disability, and substance use disorder services benefit
• When compared against the rate increases of commercial health insurance companies, Michigan’s public mental health system saved over $13 billion dollars ($13,992,156,714) since 1998, when this public system became the managed care organization for the state’s Medicaid mental health, intellectual/developmental disability, and substance use disorder services benefit
The new study shows how Michigan’s public community mental health system – the state’s Community Mental Health centers, the public Prepaid Inpatient Health Plans (PIHPs, formed and governed by the CMHs), and its provider network – delivers exceptional benefits while using sound and creative methods to keep costs significantly below national Medicaid per enrollee costs and those of commercial health insurers. These methods include:
• Very low administrative costs
• Comprehensive and closely aligned provider networks
• Applying person-centered planning approaches to care
• Addressing a range of social determinants of health through a whole-person orientation by working closely with a range of healthcare and human services in the consumer’s home community
• Weaving the services offered by the CMH and provider network with the care that families and friends provide
• Using other consumers as peer supports and advocates on behalf of the persons served
• Using an array of both traditional (psychiatric care, psychotherapy, inpatient psychiatric care) and nontraditional services (housing supports, employment supports, homebased services).