Mental Health

Montana lawmakers Monday narrowly voted down a bill that would have funded suicide screening for middle and high school students.

Montana lawmakers are considering changes to how the state spends millions of dollars generated by marijuana sales on mental health and addiction treatments.

More Montana middle and high school students could be screened for anxiety, depression and suicide risk starting next year. A bill that would make this available to districts statewide was introduced at the Legislature this week.

State health officials Thursday updated lawmakers on their plan to improve care at the Montana State Hospital and to apply for federal recertification in roughly 18 months. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pulled certification following patient deaths, blocking Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements from flowing to the state hospital.

The state’s only psychiatric hospital for adults has been discharging patients to homeless shelters with no plan for care and sometimes without medications, according to a report from a designated watchdog group.

The amended agreement with Alvarez & Marsal went into effect Oct 1.

Montana has six mobile crisis teams, and there are three more teams due to come online soon. However, most are based in counties with urban centers that can afford them.

The state's three crisis call centers answer more than 10,000 calls to the lifeline a year.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in February warned the state it could lose funding after they found that the Montana State Hospital didn’t have measures in place to prevent COVID-19 infections and serious falls among patients, which led to four deaths.

Montana is joining other states around the country getting federal support to develop an Office of Faith and Community Based Services.