BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — Idaho Capital Sun reports that a man in his 40s, who had severe mental illness and lived with his family in the Boise area, died recently after Idaho cut critical mental health services, according to a clinic owner who leads the local treatment team.
Providers say it marks the third death among patients who were receiving mobile, specialized treatment in less than three months since an Idaho Medicaid contractor cut the service. In the year and a half before the cut, providers say only one patient on the program died.
Laura Scuri co-owns Access Behavioral Health Services in Boise and runs the region’s team for the cut service, called Assertive Community Treatment, or ACT. She said the official cause of death for the patient hasn’t yet been released. But she said she believed his death was preventable, saying the cut program was designed to help people address their basic needs.
Soon after the cuts were announced, providers and the Idaho Sheriffs’ Association warned that the cuts would risk public safety, and providers said the cuts would drive up other costs even more. Eastern Idaho crisis centers are seeing demand spike after the cuts, which also ended peer support services that help people navigate mental health treatment.
In the next few months, Scuri fears the cuts could spur a violent critical incident as people with severe mental health issues lose accessible treatment.
State health officials have denied that the entire ACT program was cut, saying services are still available. But some providers say the services that are still available aren’t what the evidence-based program was like, because providers aren’t paid to staff mobile treatment teams.
Magellan, the contractor that runs Idaho Medicaid mental health benefits, and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare were not immediately available for comment.
About 200 people in Idaho are on the ACT program, Magellan Healthcare’s Idaho Executive Director David Welsh wrote in a December declaration in response to a federal lawsuit by patients.
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