The Role of Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services Policies in Organizing and Financing Care for Children with Severe Emotional Disturbance
Abstract
**Please note that the full text is embargoed** ABSTRACT: Medicaid finances considerable home and community-based children’s mental health treatment, and The Department of Health and Human Services offers a variety Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) policies that allow states to extend Medicaid coverage to special populations, including those with incomes beyond Medicaid eligibility criteria. Because waivers pay for alternatives to institutional care, and because they reach many families whose children have Severe Emotional Disturbance (SED), they hold great promise as a source of support and structure for community-based integrated systems of care for seriously mentally ill children. However, we know little about why states adopt such policies to target children with complex behavioral health needs, and the community-based alternatives funded by waivers remain largely unspecified and untested. Medicaid HCBS funded treatment programs afford unparalleled opportunities to learn more about community-based treatment for youth with SED as it currently exits, informing the knowledge base about child mental health treatment and potentially upgrading service delivery to these youth and their families.