Vets/Republicans clash with Democrats over mental healthcare

[PainRack]

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pent ... ss-and-va/



Essentially, the Republicans and some veteran advocacy groups are clashing with VA Democrat committee members over a new law, intended to expand mental health services access by allowing the VA to pay for local community groups mental health services. The decision to use private healthcare groups is seen as a relatively easy way to expand mental healthcare access for Veterans, especially those stuck in waiting lists for VA appointments.



This is a key issue, because the impact of almost 20 years at war means there's a lot of demand, demand the VA can't meet even if we ignore the antiquated nature of their support services.





However, House Democrats are requesting repeated renegotiations due to concern of oversight. They decry Republican and VA media attacks as ignoring the delicacies of legislative negotiations and etc, which is partially true.

The real problem is that



https://www.cchr.org/cchr-reports/massi ... ction.html



https://www.smpresource.org/Content/Med ... Fraud.aspx



https://www.ajmc.com/contributor/andria ... cial-costs



Medicaid fraud in mental health, worse if you include substance abuse services is RAMPANT. Not just in terms of false billing, but providing utterly ineffective services and care.



https://youtu.be/hWQiXv0sn9Y



There... Is no real easy solution here. Medicaid fraud already demonstrates the dangers of simply paying mental health services for mental health care. Unlike faux fraud over firemen and police officers (Zadroga act), this IS an actual problem.

[Broomstick]

Medicaid fraud in mental health, worse if you include substance abuse services is RAMPANT. Not just in terms of false billing, but providing utterly ineffective services and care.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time this morning to give this the attention it deserves, but part of the problem here is that often we either don't know or don't have an effective treatment for mental illness, whether substance abuse or mental health. Broken leg? Yeah, we know how to fix that. Broken mind and spirit? Not so much. That makes it so much easier for either ineffective treatments to be promoted or for outright deliberate fraud to take place.

[PainRack]

Medicaid fraud in mental health, worse if you include substance abuse services is RAMPANT. Not just in terms of false billing, but providing utterly ineffective services and care.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time this morning to give this the attention it deserves, but part of the problem here is that often we either don't know or don't have an effective treatment for mental illness, whether substance abuse or mental health. Broken leg? Yeah, we know how to fix that. Broken mind and spirit? Not so much. That makes it so much easier for either ineffective treatments to be promoted or for outright deliberate fraud to take place.

True. However. The APA does have guidelines on what treatments to recommend and that is a standard of sorts.
So, to treat depression, you can offer Cognitive Behavioural Therapy . The quality and effectiveness can vary. The therapist may be crap, even if they had the relevant qualifications and license. They can be very good but you not suited for CBT.
That falls under what you describe. For licensed fraud though, what happens is that double billing or fictitious billing occur. A 1 Hr session gets charged as two. You engage in plain recreational play but it's billed as group session. . You don't show but you still get charged.

The other form of "fraud" though is well meaning... Or predatory groups setting up utterly ineffective sessions not suitable. These are the kind that can be accessed under this new law.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders ... ittlefield

This is probably the best known example. Group activities with former peers, under the form of Peer support group is thereauptic but quality differs based on the conductor. However, a non medication compliant, active hallucinatory and delusional suicidal person being brought near guns ?!!?!?!?

His testimony that he shot them because they were silent as they just brought him to the range is chilling. The legal argument that his diagnosis was multiple personality with delusions brought on by substance abuse STILL doesn't justify bringing him to a shooting range.

Should such activities be monitored and excluded? Vets and Reps don't care. Dems are saying well....