Barth Hague: The true cost of cutting health homes program

There’s no question that Kansas’ current budget crisis will adversely affect many lives. Chief among them are more than 27,000 severely mentally ill Kansans who have little, if any, voice in politics or the state’s economy.

It was a short 18 months ago that Kansas began its “health homes” program. The program asked mental health centers and other providers such as Mirror Inc. to coordinate the care of Medicaid patients with severe mental illness. The program is designed to decrease costs and improve outcomes among a population that must often rely on hospital emergency rooms for health care, if they receive care at all. More often, people with severe mental illness find themselves on the street or in our prisons, unable to access proper care.

About three years of operation are needed in order to substantiate the savings the program provides. In Washington state, where health homes have operated for a longer period, savings are reported at $21.6 million. Missouri’s program has resulted in a 12.8 percent reduction in emergency room visits.

Though health homes can save the state tens of millions of dollars over time, the budget crisis is immediate. That’s a likely reason why Gov. Sam Brownback cut the program completely from his 2017 budget proposal. That move will largely go unnoticed, since this population of Kansans has virtually no clout in state politics. It’s really up to the rest of us to be their voices of support.

Some state leaders strongly oppose the health homes program, arguing that it duplicates services. Yet there is no such program in the state designed to manage care and reduce costs among this population.

Without health homes, the state risks sending many of its severely mentally ill citizens back to emergency rooms, the street or prison. Over time, the costs will be far higher than the savings in the 2017 budget. That just passes the real problem to future state leaders to resolve.

Instead of eliminating the program, the Legislature should be expanding it to include other chronic conditions, to reduce costs and improve outcomes for even more Kansans. Urge your elected officials in Topeka to resist short-term fixes like this one that will result in even greater fiscal problems down the road.

This story was originally published February 10, 2016 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Barth Hague: The true cost of cutting health homes program."