Healthcare Economist August 13, 2024
When people are having a mental health crisis, what are their options? Many patients may need to go to the emergency department (ED). An alternative to the ED is behavioral health crisis care (BHCC),defined as emergency behavioral health services available on a 24/7 walk-in basis to all patients, regardless of ability to pay. BHCC typically offer emergency psychiatric walk-in services, crisis intervention teams, suicide prevention services, and peer support specialists. BHCC also claim to be able to reduce inappropriate ED use…but do they in practice?
That is the question that a new paper by Burns et al. (2024) aims to answer. The use data from 2016-2021 SAMHSA’s National Directories of Mental Health Treatment Facilities to identify states with BHCC facilities...