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���������� Note: The ���������� Public Policy Committee has finalized our 2013-4 State Budget and Legislative Agenda, which will be advanced by over 700 advocates at next Tuesday’s Legislative Day at the Egg’s Hart Auditorium, starting at 10:00 am.

We’ll also be conducting a 1pm Capitol rally to press for state hospital downsizing/reinvestment and to protect psychiatric profiling.

Please see the attached Legislative Day book, which we’ll be distributing with hats and buttons at next week’s event.

Following is a summary of our positions.

To join us, please call Mary at 518-436-0008 or email her at mary@nyaprs.org. See you next Tuesday!

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���������� 2013 BUDGET AND LEGISLATIVE AGENDA SUMMARY

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Protect and Support the Community Mental Health Safety Net

• Support Executive Budget’s preservation of community safety net comprised of essential community based rehabilitation, clubhouse, residential, peer run, treatment, care management and related support services
• Seek a 1.8% Cost of Living Adjustment

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Reinvest Savings from State Hospital Downsizing to Boost Local Community Based Housing, Employment and Peer Services

• Strong support for Executive Budget’s state hospital downsizing & Reinvestment plan/extension.
• To ensure that proposed closures and downsizing of that system are done properly, we call for a process that ensures person-driven community recovery and service plans with sufficient time to put individualized supports in place prior to discharge

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Enhance Medicaid Community Recovery Services & Supports

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Medicaid Consolidation within Health Department

• The Office of Mental Health must play a strong role in the development of Medicaid program and reimbursement/rate policies.��

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Health Homes:

• Support Executive Budget’s $15 million to help providers to enhance their capacity to install electronic healthcare record systems to share/review patient information in ‘real time.’
• Support Executive Budget’s $10 million to provide enhanced voluntary services to at risk individuals

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Integration of Behavioral/Physical Healthcare

• Support Executive Budget’s $15 million to integrate mental health, addiction and medical care

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���������� urges the state legislature to reinvestment of savings from reduced Medicaid inpatient/emergency use by behavioral health conditions into community recovery service enhancements

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Protect Medicaid Beneficiary Rights and Medication Access

• Protections: Guarantee strong prescriber prevails protections.
• Education: Provide an array of culturally and linguistically competent and understandable educational materials and strategies
• Enrollment Assistance: Expand the number of managed care enrollment brokers, including the use of peer brokers.
• Advocacy/Appeals: Support Executive Budget’s $3 million Medicaid managed care ombuds expansion; encourage inclusion of peer ombuds staff.

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Serve ����������ers with Psychiatric Disabilities in the Most Integrated Settings

Housing

• Support Executive Budget’s 1,000 OMH supported housing units for residents of nursing homes and 3,400 beds for NYC homeless housing program
• Support Executive Budget’s $91 million of Medicaid Redesign created housing for services, rent subsidies and capital dollars to create supportive housing for high needs Medicaid beneficiaries.
• ���������� urges the state legislature to create a 10% set-aside program for high-need individuals with disabilities.��

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Bringing Justice to Adult Home Residents��

• Support Executive Budget’s 4,000 OMH supported housing beds for adult home residents.

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Employment for ����������ers with Disabilities

• OMH should boost employment opportunities by reinvesting savings from state and Medicaid hospital reductions and accelerating Ticket to Work program.

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Finalize a NYS Olmstead Plan

���������� members strongly support the Executive Order creating an Olmstead Cabinet that will recommend by May how we will meet “measurable progress goals for achieving integrated residential living, including transition goals from segregated to residential housing, and employment opportunities for people with disabilities.”

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Expand Voluntary Initiatives to Help Distressed Individuals

Oppose Criminalization, Psychiatric Profiling

• Reject the criminalization and psychiatric profiling of our community.
• The use of registry data must not extend and cannot be shared beyond gun related purposes.
• Accelerate sweeping NYS Medicaid and mental health reforms to enhance an array of voluntary strategies, including active community outreach, engagement and follow up; emphasize relapse prevention and ‘real time’ crisis responses; require closely coordinated hospital discharge transitions to community supports; implement electronic healthcare record systems that will ensure accurate real time patient information to all providers and financially reward community providers for measurable improvements in stability and self care
• Increase the use of peer outreach, recovery and crisis support services
• Support Executive Budget’s creation of state/local Incident Review Panels
• Urge adoption of nationally acclaimed Crisis Intervention Teams in NYC that add mental health counselors and peer crisis staff to help de-escalate potentially violent confrontations between police and distressed individuals
• Widely publicize 24 hour county emergency mental health contact lines
• Expand OMH First Episode programs, especially for youth in schools and colleges
• Require mental health parity across all private insurance plans, Health ���������� and in the new Health Exchanges.

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The ���������� Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services represents a statewide�� partnership of tens of thousands of New Yorkers who use and/or provide community mental health services and who are dedicated to improving services and social conditions for people with psychiatric disabilities by promoting their recovery, rehabilitation and rights.

www.nyaprs.org

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