Letters: New N.J. system will jeopardize mental-health care

ISSUE | MENTAL HEALTH

New N.J. system

will jeopardize care

Community-based mental-health and substance-use services enable people to lead healthy, productive lives; reduce emergency-room visits and hospitalizations; and prevent imprisonment and homelessness. Access to quality services is the morally right, fiscally responsible goal.

Many such programs in New Jersey face downsizing or closure because a proposed transition in state reimbursement rates will leave them far short of the cost of care. If rates are not sufficiently increased, more than 20,000 people will lose services.

The New Jersey Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies recommends that the state provide full contract funding for the first two years of a new fee-for-service system without restrictive contract language that prevents providers from building reserves. If rates are set correctly, the state will realize full reimbursement at the end of each year. The association also requests independent oversight of the system to ensure that it operates efficiently and effectively and that rates keep pace with inflation.

We encourage everyone to urge their state representatives to support adequate rates, an extended transition period, and independent oversight to ensure access to quality mental-health and substance-use services.

|Debra L. Wentz, president and chief executive officer, New Jersey Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies, Mercerville, N.J.