As I see it: Helping people with mental health problems to live their lives to the fullest – Opinion – telegram.com

In the United States, people living with a complex mental disorder, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or treatment-resistant depression, have a life expectancy 25 years shorter than those without these conditions – 25 years [19659002] they do not die, for the most part, of suicide, although suicide rates in this population remain higher than in the mainstream. No – they die of everyday diseases like diabetes, hypertension, cancer and heart failure, and respiratory and infectious diseases, the same things as all the others, but 25 years later.

People with mental illness die earlier physical medical conditions that may be related or complicated by the long-term use of psychiatric drugs. These medications can cause increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels that can lead to premature death. They also die because they fall through the cracks for lack of coordinated services that can help them. In 1965, my father, a pharmaceutical salesman who spent most of his life in Pennsylvania, died of lung cancer at the age of sixty, while he lived in Florida, where he had retired. He also had bipolar disorder, and was on Medicaid, due to unfortunate circumstances that were a byproduct of his condition. I would like my father to be fifty-five years old now, the age at which he was diagnosed for the first time and that he lives in Massachusetts. Here's why:

In Massachusetts, a bipartisan effort is underway to deal with these startling statistics. Led by Governor Charlie Baker and supported by both Houses of the Legislature, the Commonwealth is ready to inject $ 83 million in new funding into a redesign and strengthening of state ownership. the most complex mental health needs. The adoption of the state budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, and which is in the final stage of preparation, will almost certainly include this increase.

However, even before the budget was voted, the Administration began to act. There are about 11,000 adults in Massachusetts with complex mental health needs, like my father, who benefit from the largest community-based program in the Department of Mental Health. This program, now known as Adult Community Clinical Services (ACCS) since July 1st, features new and improved services with several revolutionary features that squarely address the challenge of life expectancy.

ACCS is not just a mental health program; It is a health care program that recruits mental health services for clients and that also benefits from medical care in the community. ACCS aligns with another restructured program in the state, Mass Health Health Care Organizations (ACOs), which are health care providers such as doctors, hospitals and diets. Health insurance that come together to provide high quality coordinated care. the patients. Mass Health, which is the state's Medicaid program, has restructured its delivery system into 17 ACOs across the state. The goal of coordinated care provided by an ACO is to ensure that patients and populations – especially the chronically ill – receive the right medical care, at the right time, while avoiding the care that n & # 39; Have not proven useful or represent unnecessary duplication of services. A large number of people served by the ACCS program of the Department of Mental Health will be members of a COA and will have access to coordinated health care.

What would an ACO have meant for my father's when he had been living in Massachusetts? , would not have been just visits to a psychiatrist. He would also have had a primary care physician and other specialists to meet his needs, and they would all have collaborated to help him lose weight, manage his diabetes, exercise and eventually , to monitor the small point that was found on his lung through a chest x-ray in a Midwestern acute care clinic at the age of 55, five years before his death, with no coordinated follow-up after diagnoses initial. This was the classic case of someone who needed help and who had the right to slip through the cracks.

In addition to medical services, ACCS is doing more to ensure full integration of care. Each CACS member will be assigned to work with a Community Behavioral Health Partner (BHCP), which, for example, will provide coaching on health and well-being and support community and social service linkages. . The team includes registered nurses, clinical social workers, community health workers, peer specialists and recovery coaches.

For my father, this would have been a traveling companion, someone who might have known him, not just a patient, but as a person and could have helped him navigate a very complicated system .

So, will there still be problems in the state's mental health system once the ACCS and ACO fully operational? Of course, there will be. We do not have enough mental health clinicians in this state to meet the current demand, let alone what the new system will add. And more could be said.

But significant action is taken against a blatant disparity. For the leaders of our state, Governor Charlie Baker, Secretary of Health and Social Services Mary Lou Sudders, President Robert DeLeo and members of the House, Senate Speaker Harriet Chandler and her fellow senators to support the budget from the Department of Mental Health. in 15 years, $ 83 million is added to the $ 776.8 million that was spent previously to allow them to affirm the dignity and worth of those living with serious mental illness in this Commonwealth . My father, always patriotic, would be proud.

Cheri Andes, of Framingham, is Executive Director of the Massachusetts National Alliance for Mental Illness, located in Charlestown, a non-profit and advocacy group of individuals and families in need . mental health services.