Montana lawmakers are working on trying to improve mental health care treatment for young people. One idea they’re looking at would link how much counselors or mental health care providers get paid to how well their patients do.
Sue O’Connell says mental health performance targets exist, but still aren’t common. O’Connell is lead staff for the legislature’s joint Children, Families, Health and Human Services Interim committee.
“For example there’s a pretty standard treatment protocol for a disease like diabetes and it’s easy to tell if a physician is following that protocol, but there’s often less agreement that one specific treatment route is best for a specific mental illness and that make it harder to institute performance measures in that area.”
Members of the joint legislative committee heard this week from representatives of three states that are using various approaches to improve mental health outcomes and - when possible – better hold the line on costs.
Jim Fitzgerald of the Helena-based children’s mental health agency, Intermountain, urges the committee members to focus on quality patient care above the bottom line.
"I am concerned that we turn children into a commodity and measure the things that are always easiest to measure; length of stay, dollars spent those kinds of things. Without looking at the very complex nature of how children become seriously disturbed and how we have to get involved to intervene with that.”
No action was taken on the proposal, but the interim committee must issue its findings on children's mental health outcomes before the start of 2017 legislative session.
