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Metro IL wins commit to establish Crisis Stabilization Unit across 5 counties


Fox River Valley Initiative (FRVI) worked with Kane County States Attorney to get a meeting with Governor Pritzker.  A team of leaders from Dupage United, FRVI, United Power and Lake County United met with the Governor to seek his support for Medicaid funding for Crisis Stabilization Units, which divert those in a mental crisis from jail and hospital emergency room. The Governor then directed his Deputy Governor and Director of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) to meet with IL Metro IAF leaders to address this issue by July 1, 2019. 
  
Illinois Metro IAF leaders then organized a meeting with allies from hospitals and law enforcement to meet with Deputy Governor Flores and HFS Director Eagleson to lay out the urgency and impact of Crisis Stabilization Units. Top executive staff from five health care providers, including 2 independent safety net hospitals,1 for-profit behavioral hospital, and a hospital network shared their commitment to establish a separate Crisis Stabilization Unit across 5 five counties all within about a year.

LCU wins funds to cover under/un-insured outpatient & wrap around services

Lake County United organized a meeting with Lake County Chairwoman, Health Department Executive Director, President Chiefs of Police Association and Waukegan Police Chief to seek a commitment from U.S. Healthvest / Lake Behavioral Hospital to provide space, staff, medical clearance, detoxification and police drop off, regardless of the patient’s ability to pay with state approved Medicaid funding for these services. A commitment verbally and in writing was made by U.S.Healthvest, which will allow the county to redirect funds from building and running a CSU to put toward outpatient and wrap around services. 

LCU builds school-based clinics one tour at a time

Parents of the Waukegan School District (16,000 students and 70% low-income) and residents of Waukegan are working together as part of Lake County United (LCU) to press for a mental health clinic in the High School.  LCU organized a tour of a clinic in another school district with three school members, including the President, and top district staff attending, resulting in an increase of support and sense of urgency to address this need.

Community Health Worker Poster Wins People’s Choice Award

GBIO Wins Unprecedented Price Caps, Saving Consumers $1B From Healthcare Systems Merger

Photo of Attorney General Maura Healey at GBIO Oct. 22nd 20th Anniversary action
 
As part of a court-filed consumer protection agreement negotiated between Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH), Massachusetts consumers and taxpayers will save over one billion dollars of healthcare costs over the next seven years as a result of price caps established in response to action by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO). The cost savings are based on a report by the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, a state research agency established by law championed by GBIO in 2012.
 
Beth Israel and Lahey Health Systems and a combination of 13 hospitals have been attempting to merge into a single healthcare system since the beginning of 2017. By forming the second largest healthcare system in Massachusetts, BILH believes it will be better able to compete against Partners Healthcare, the dominant healthcare system in Massachusetts. GBIO has been fighting for consumers and taxpayers to ensure that the merger would not cause a dramatic increase in costs. When the Health Policy Commission predicted that the merger would drive up healthcare costs by as much as $230 million dollars per year, GBIO challenged Attorney General Maura Healey and other state agencies to protect consumers from this outrageous increase in cost.
 
At the Fall GBIO Action, held on October 22nd at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, Attorney General Maura Healey engaged with over 1400 people representing 43 GBIO member institutions. GBIO leaders called for and Attorney General Healey promised to fight for conditions “with teeth” in the proposed merger, to protect consumers from increasing costs and declining access, particularly for low income and communities of color. You can see Attorney General Healey’s response to our action and our call for her to stay strong during her negotiations.
 
On November 29th, she announced an unprecedented seven-year price cap to ensure that Beth Israel Lahey Health does not take advantage of its market power to increase its prices. These prices are established as BILH negotiates with health insurance companies which then pass on increased costs to consumers in the forms of higher premiums and higher out-of-pocket costs.
 
Price caps such as these have never been negotiated as part of a healthcare market transaction in Massachusetts. In addition to the price caps, other demands of GBIO, such as improved access for the Massachusetts Medicaid population and $72 million in support of lower-cost settings for healthcare, were included as part of the agreement between Attorney General Healey and BILH.
 
In an interview with WBUR radio, Bonny Gilbert, co-chair of the GBIO healthcare action team, said, "We would like to see this kind of stronger language at least be the beginnings of more constraints on Partners and some of the other health care providers." And, says Gilbert, the caps must not be allowed to expire for BILH.
 
Additional link: WCVB Channel 5 highlighted GBIO’s involvement in this merger. 
 

Lake County United Wins an Additional 100 Inpatient Beds for Behavioral Hospital in Waukegan

Christa Haberkorn speaks to City of Waukegan Planning Zoning Commission about the losing her job due to long distance travel to seek medical care for her daughter.
 
Lake County United successfully pressed for approval of adding 100 more inpatient beds at the new behavioral hospital in Waukegan, IL.  Lake Behavioral Hospital will now have 146 beds and committed to serve adults and adolescents regardless of ability to pay.  Picture of hospital below.
 

GBIO Leader Testifies at Public Hearing on Massachusetts Healthcare Systems Merger

LI-CAN Wins Expansion of Medication-Assisted Treatment


Medical leaders and practitioners attend LI-CAN’s Medication-Assisted Treatment conference to fight opioid addiction.
 
Long Island CAN made major strides this month in its campaign to get life-saving medical care for the thousands of opioid users on Long Island, whose addiction exposes them to increasingly lethal synthetic opioids.
 
More than 100 medical leaders and practitioners attended LI-CAN’s March 17th conference on medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid addiction.  MAT is the medical standard of care for opioid addiction, but most opioid users don’t receive it.  Instead the prevailing approach is abstinence-based treatment which, for 90% of clients, leads to a relapse within 3 months of discharge from treatment.
 
LI-CAN is working to remove the barriers to MAT in the medical profession, the criminal justice system, insurer practices, and the treatment system.  Three breakthrough wins were announced or achieved at the conference:
  • The region’s two largest hospital chains will begin providing MAT to opioid users in their emergency departments (EDs).  LI-CAN asked the chains to change their ED protocols in 2017 after hearing story after story of opioid users overdosing fatally after being discharged quickly from EDs when they survived previous overdoses.  “We asked them to stop missing these opportunities to interrupt the deadly progression of this disease,” said LI-CAN Co-chairperson Rev. Gideon Pollach.  “We brought them a proposal based on a Yale study showing you can save lives by starting MAT in the emergency room, instead of just discharging these patients with a referral to treatment.  Now that the two biggest chains have said yes, we will work to make this the standard approach to handling opioid overdoses in the ED.”
     
  • 30 doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants received training needed to receive a federal waiver to prescribe buprenorphine, a highly effective MAT drug.  These new prescribers will help alleviate the shortage of practitioners offering the drug on Long Island.
     
  • A group of veteran MAT practitioners launched a groundbreaking MAT Learning Collaborative to provide ongoing peer support, education and clinical mentorships for fellow practitioners.  “A learning collaborative is one cornerstone to a functioning MAT infrastructure on Long Island,” said Dr. Leslie Marino, an addiction psychiatrist who has served as LI-CAN’s medical advisor.
Building on these successes, LI-CAN will now expand its work to root out the stigma and bias against MAT throughout the criminal justice system.

GCC wins Medicaid Expansion in Ohio

Greater Cleveland Congregations takes much credit for Medicaid Expansion in Ohio, which gives an additional 275,000 Ohioans access to Health Care.  Starting in 2012, GCC created the NEO-MEC coalition with hospitals and other interests, held a 1200-person Assembly at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church to show our support for expansion, lobbied in Columbus 4 times, wrote thousands of letters and made phone calls to our legislators, filled 3 busses on 3 days’ notice to rally on the Statehouse steps, canvassed in 3 local swing districts to urge voters to contact their legislators, wrote an op-ed in the Plain Dealer, and collected 2,500 signatures in 3 weeks during a ballot initiative.

On October 21st, the Controlling Board voted to approve the federal funds to expand Medicaid, and on December 21st, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld this decision. 

Common Ground Health Care Co-op Enrollment Surges

Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, a creature of an Obamacare initiative for nonprofit customer-owned health plans, has enrolled more than 2,200 Wisconsinites so far — and 75 percent to 80 percent of them enrolled via the online health-insurance marketplace.

Bob De Vita, chief executive officer of Brookfield-based Common Ground, said he is confident the co-op will meet his goal of signing 10,000 people by the end of 2014.

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