H E A LT H C A R E SPEC I A L SEC T I O N
A peer outreach worker stocks the pantry at the POWER Center, a drop-in center and clinic where youth and young adults can relax with peers and access resources such as food, computers, clothing, and mental health treatment. Alaska Behavioral Health
outreach staff as well. An additional clinician will improve ABH’s ability to provide same-day, in-person crisis intervention services, while additional peer outreach workers will allow for more “outreach in the community to connect homeless youth to our center and to resources, as well as provide resources on-site,” Hanson says.
Closing ‘Significant’ Behavioral Health Gaps In most states, the behavioral health system operates under a continuum of care that provides inpatient and residential mental health services, partial hospitalization programs, and intensive and traditional outpatient services, with the goal of placing patients in the least restrictive treatment setting, Myers explains. But as is typical in Alaska, there were significant gaps in the availability of these services on a regional and statewide level. 52 | December 2021
“Alaska only really had the traditional outpatient [services] and the inpatient through Alaska Psychiatric Institute, Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, and Bartlett Hospital in Juneau,” Myers explains. “There was really nothing in the middle, and really nothing for the long-term care.” That meant, depending on the type of care needed, patients’ only options were to seek treatment in Anchorage or the Lower 48 or forego it and utilize a level of care that didn’t adequately meet their needs. Approval of the Section 1115 Medicaid waiver in 2020, however, is helping fill in those gaps by allowing ABH to accept coverage for pilot projects offering previously unavailable services. “What we were really missing was a higher level of care for someone who maybe couldn’t access outpatient clinic-based services,” Alvarez says. “So, what we’ve been able to do
is expand the community-based services, intensive case management, and that’s where 75 percent to 80 percent of the services are provided. So, it really increases client ability to participate in treatment; you kind of are able to meet them in the community where they are, their home or whatever.” An adult mental health residential treatment program in Fairbanks, scheduled to open in November, will provides 24/7 residential care to patients who are not yet able to maintain their recovery safely in the community but are stable enough that they do not require inpatient services, Alvarez explains. “That’s going to be a huge need for the community,” she says. “As of right now, if anybody needs that in Fairbanks, they’re coming to Anchorage, and before we opened our [residential] facility in Anchorage [in January 2021], the only option was to go out of state.” The facility, which will serve adults eighteen and older diagnosed with a mental health or co-occurring disorder and a history of continuous, high-service needs, will provide medication and individual and group therapy under the supervision of an interdisciplinary team composed of advanced nurse practitioners, mental health clinicians, clinical associates, and peer support specialists. The ability to remain in Fairbanks for treatment, rather than seek services in Anchorage or even out of state, is important for a patient’s long-term recovery. “It’s always ideal when somebody needs treatment to have it in their own community, so when you link them to outpatient providers, you have their supports in place, so we’re very excited about that for Fairbanks,” Alvarez explains. Even with the new programs ready to launch, ABH is already exploring new options to meet the continued demand for mental health services. “We’ve been looking at various options for how we can make the next big expansion of space, shuffle things around so multiple things can grow,” Myers says. “We’re just trying to grow to meet demand; I don’t see an end point for that.”
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