WEBINAR: Measuring Behavioral Health Investment

Over the last decade, at least a dozen states and regions have taken steps to measure primary care investment as part of larger efforts to increase investment in primary care. Now, some states have adopted similar requirements to measure behavioral health care.

On April 24, the Milbank Memorial Fund and the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) sponsored a webinar for state officials that will use examples to describe key decisions and trade-offs to take into consideration when developing measurement and reporting methodologies, including:

• Whether states should focus behavioral health investment measurement on clinical services, or also include social supports and/or other behavioral health initiatives such as workforce expansion
• What data sources to use to supplement the all-payer claims database (APCD)
• What best practices to consider incorporating into measurement and reporting

Speakers included:

• Rachel Block, Program Officer, Milbank Memorial Fund (moderator)
• Mary Jo Condon, Principal Consultant, Freedman HealthCare
• Rick Rowley, Chief Data Officer, Colorado Behavioral Health Administration
• Vinayak Sinha, Consultant, Freedman HealthCare
• Caitlyn B. Sullivan, Deputy Executive Director, Health Informatics and Reporting, Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis

The webinar drew on the recent CHCF report, Investing in Behavioral Health: Lessons from State-Based Efforts, in which Freedman HealthCare researchers examine the growing body of state behavioral health investment data collection and reporting. The paper discusses the ways in which these states have measured and reported on three categories — clinical, social support, and other.

Download the slides