Arizona Mental Health

Observations of reduced utilization of alcohol and drug abuse treatment following the introduction of managed behavioral health care suggest that substance abuse services may be especially responsive to managed care restrictions and limits. In publicly funded treatment systems, patient attributes, system and provider characteristics, and financing mechanisms may heighten susceptibility to unintended effects. The State Substance Abuse and Mental Health Treatment Managed Care Evaluation Program reviewed state managed care programs for publicly funded alcohol and drug treatment services and is evaluating programs in Arizona, Iowa, Maryland, and Nebraska...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The authors describe a prepaid mental health service program in which outpatients referrals were 34.7 per 1,000 members per month, the hospital admission rate was .80 admissions per 1,000 members per year, and the average length of hospital stay was 5.03 days. They offer several explanations for their finding that the costs for mental health services in this program appear lower than those in fee-for-service programs.

Banner Health in the Phoenix, AZ, metropolitan area provides individuals in a behavioral health crisis with an alternative to presenting to an Emergency Department (ED). By implementing a process to quickly move patients out of our ED, our health care system has been able to greatly reduce the hold time for behavioral health patients. Through access to psychiatric clinicians around the clock at the Banner Psychiatric Center, patients now receive the appropriate treatment and needed care in a timely manner. Finally, disposition of patients into appropriate levels of care has freed up acute care Level 1 beds to be available to patients who meet those criteria...

A survey was used to compare the attitudes of twelve Phoenix area mental health agencies regarding community control and participation in social action. A modified Likert scale provided attitude choices for survey items. The researcher computed mean scores for the twelve agencies for survey items. Each agency's attitudes are compared to the attitudes of the other eleven agencies considered as a group. No agency differed significantly from the other eleven on community control. One agency significantly differed from the other eleven regarding participation in social action...

Litigation may be a viable means to change mental health systems for the chronically mentally ill. Court orders achieved in the 1970s have been ignored or proven inefficient over the years. However, in Arizona, a strategy was designed by a team of lawyers and psychiatrists to deal with failures seen elsewhere in court actions seeking adequate services for chronically mentally ill patients. This novel approach produced a favorable court outcome and triggered a chain reaction at the executive and legislative levels to reform radically the system of care for the chronically mentally ill in Arizona...

Reform in a system of mental health services is the result of a variety of forces that operate synergistically to bring about observed events. This evolutionary process is most likely to yield substantial results through multiple interventions over time rather than a single attempt at reform. A process of change in the mental health service system in Arizona has been evolving in response to the interaction of several key variables: a social movement dedicated to reform, a planned design for change, and the use of litigation...