New Bert Nash health home will coordinate care delivery

When the Bert Nash health home opens August 1st, it won’t involve new construction, or a new address. There’s a good reason for that.

“A health home is not a building,” said Amy Warren, who heads up the program’s six-member team. So what is a health home?

“It’s the whole-person approach,” Warren said. “We will be providing whole-person care with a focus on wellness.”

Or as Patricia Roach Smith, Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center chief operating officer, said, “This is integrated care on steroids.”

And the best part, there’s no cost to the consumer.

“This is covered through their Medicaid benefit,” Roach Smith said. “So, that’s a great thing.”

The federal government will pay 90 percent of the costs for the first two years each individual is involved in the program. The health homes program is a federal initiative — part of the Affordable Care Act. The program targets Medicaid enrollees who have severe mental illness and chronic health conditions, such as diabetes or high blood pressure.

“The idea behind the health home is whole-person care,” said Roach Smith, who oversaw the startup of the new program for Bert Nash. “I like to think of the health home as not a service, not a place, but a coordination. We’re coordinating care for people who have challenges with handling day-to-day life. We’re not going to take your temperature, we’re not going to draw your blood. We’re just going to make sure those things are happening. People with severe mental illness die 25 years earlier than people in the general population. There are a variety of reasons for that, but if people with mental illness have someone who can coordinate care, that can really help them with the challenges of handling day-to-day life. ”

Kansas is one of more than 25 states to adopt the health homes program. Missouri was the pilot state for the program, beginning in 2012.In its first year, officials estimated the initiative saved the state about $4.2 million in hospital and emergency room Medicaid costs through education and early intervention.

“The goal of the health homes is to decrease inpatient stays, decrease ER visit and decrease symptoms related to chronic conditions,” team leader Warren said.

“Missouri has had a lot of success with the program,” Roach Smith said. “Like Missouri, we think that by year two we will see significant cost savings and an increase in consumers’ health status.”

Statistics show 75 percent of people with a severe mental illness have one chronic physical condition. About 30 percent have three or more chronic conditions. It can be overwhelming.

“That’s a lot to manage,” Roach Smith said. “Our health home care coordinators will help with that management.”

Notification letters were mailed in July to Medicaid enrollees in Kansas who would be eligible for the health home program. Officials estimate 75 percent of those eligible will choose to stay in the program; people have the choice to opt out and still have Medicaid. For Bert Nash, the number of eligible Medicaid enrollees in the health home is expected to be around 1,200.

“Right now, we don’t know for sure how many people will be in the health home,” Roach Smith said. “We’re operating under the assumption that about 75 percent of those 1,200 will likely be in the health home.”

The state’s three managed care organizations that make up KanCare will run the Kansas health home program. The chronic condition piece of the health homes program won’t be up and running until at least the fall, because of delays in establishing the provider network statewide. Locally, Heartland Community Health Center will be the provider for those with chronic conditions.

“We already have an integrated care partnership with Heartland and will continue to work closely with them, because we know many of our clients have physical conditions,” Roach Smith said. “Job one will be getting them a primary care doctor. Job two will be getting them to see a primary care doctor.”

Members of the Bert Nash health home team will work closely with the Center’s case managers to coordinate care delivery.

“Our case managers for our current clients with severe mental illness do a wonderful job,” Roach Smith said. “The health home will give our case managers a hand, as well as our consumers. I really see this as being helpful to everybody. I think this is a missing link that will make a big difference.”