Mental Health
Increasing efficiency
The 77th Texas Legislature charged the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services to review, evaluate, and make recommendations pertaining to the community mental health services delivery structure. In an interim report, the Committee cites the need to evaluate funding for community mental health services in terms of needs and opportunities for coordination, evaluate in-patient mental health needs to devise ways of most effectively meeting those needs, and implement productivity measures to increase system wide efficiency.
The Committee also recommended that the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (TDMHMR) expand efforts to address the disparity between the medically indigent and those with Medicaid through a Benefit Design Project. The overall aim of this project is to design a benefit package and financing methodology for community mental health services. Through this process, the department can better define who is eligible for services, what services will be provided, methods for managing service utilization, cost and fee for the services, and any unexpected outcomes of services.
(Note: The TDMHMR mental health programs transferred to the Department of State Health Services on Sept. 1, 2004.)
Updated: November 2, 2007
