Medicaid Payment Woes Plague Idaho Mental Health Service Providers
The state’s effort to rein in Medicaid costs has created deep friction between small businesses that deliver behavioral-health services to Medicaid patients and a new contractor hired to manage...
View ArticleFeds Investigate Idaho Medicaid Mental-Health Contractor For Privacy Violations
A federal agency is investigating whether the company Idaho hired to manage part of its Medicaid program has violated patient-privacy laws.Optum Idaho, a unit of United Behavioral Health, took over...
View ArticleIn Crisis: Idaho’s Fragmented Mental Health System Leaves Many Behind
Roy Vopal didn’t expect to live at a Boise Rescue Mission shelter in Downtown Boise this year. But the 60-year-old had a serious knee injury, then surgery, that he said left him unable to work for the...
View ArticleIn Crisis: How To Help Someone Needing Mental Health Care
If you or someone you know is in crisis, here are some phone numbers to call:Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255Idaho's 24-hour crisis line: 2-1-1Medical or public safety emergency:...
View ArticleIn Crisis: An Idaho Man Explains What Life Is Like With Schizophrenia
Philip Mazeikas, now 26-years-old, started noticing signs of his mental illness when he was 18."I started thinking there was a prophecy about me rising to power, or being famous," he says. "Things...
View ArticleIn Crisis: Idaho Police, Social Workers On The Front Lines Of Mental Health
Two years ago, Philip Mazeikas answered the front door of his family home. The course of his life changed when he opened it.At 24-years-old, Mazeikas found himself in the middle of his first psychotic...
View ArticleIn Crisis: Lack Of Options Shifts Mental Health Care To Idaho Hospitals
The voice started when Shawna Ervin was 16 years old, and it hounded her for two years.It told her to hurt herself.“It was relentless and wouldn’t stop laughing at me until I burned myself on my face,”...
View ArticleIn Crisis: 3 Ways To Reduce Mental Illness Stigma
Several people interviewed by the Idaho Statesman and Boise State Public Radio did not want to be named or quoted because of stigma surrounding mental illness. Shawna Ervin of Nampa believed the issue...
View ArticleIn Crisis: Why Idaho Courts, Jails Double As Mental Health Providers
It’s a sunny September afternoon, and the room is packed. It’s like a movie theater before the lights go down — the buzz of nervous energy, nattering about plans for the weekend, someone lingering in...
View ArticleIn Crisis: Idaho Judge And Sheriff Explain Link Between Crime, Mental Illness
Idaho prisons, jails and courtrooms aren’t just parts of the criminal justice system. They also have been tasked with providing treatment to Idahoans with mental illness.'WOW, THAT COULD HAPPEN TO...
View ArticleIn Crisis: Idaho Medicaid In Flux Causes A Big Shift In Care
Nine-year-old Kendra sits in one of the private rooms on the second floor of Boise’s Downtown public library with her community-based rehabilitation services worker, Jennifer Beason.Beason slides a...
View ArticleIn Crisis: Idaho's Fragmented Mental Health System In 5 Charts
All week Boise State Public Radio and the Idaho Statesman have been reporting on Idaho's fragmented, underfunded, and threadbare mental health care system.We've learned that Idaho doesn't have enough...
View ArticleCommunity Conversation: The Future Of Idaho’s Fragmented Mental Health System
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, nearly a quarter of Idahoans are living with a mental illness. Idaho has one of the highest suicide rates in the country. Nearly 22,500 Idahoans...
View ArticleIn Crisis, One Year Later: A Fragmented System Remains, But There Are Bright...
Shannon Guevara stood in a courtroom in front of her peers — a group of people who, like her, had committed felonies but whose severe mental illnesses made them eligible for a special court. She talked...
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