Colyer: KanCare will improve mental health services

Gov. Sam Brownback’s plan for letting managed care companies run the state’s Medicaid program will help people with mental illness lead more productive lives, Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer said Tuesday.

“We’re not talking about what managed care companies were like in the old days,” he said, addressing people gathered in Topeka for Mental Health Advocates Day, an event sponsored by the Kansas Mental Health Coalition.

The companies, he told the crowd, won’t be allowed to “make any money unless you get services, unless there’s patient satisfaction, unless people with mental illnesses start getting jobs.”

Colyer said the governor’s plan, called KanCare, would generate “real results for real Kansans.”

The administration is expected to award contracts to three managed care companies by fall. The companies, in turn, would take over day-to-day management of the state’s Medicaid program on Jan. 1, 2013.

Colyer said he recognized advocates’ concerns that the administration is trying to do too much too fast.

“There will be fits and starts – there’s no question about it,” he said. “But we have to do a better job than we are now. We all agree on that.”

Colyer, who chaired a subcabinet group that developed the KanCare plan, said the governor made it clear that he doesn’t want to deny benefits to the needy or cut rates paid to Medicaid providers as has been done in other states.

“Last year, 31 states implemented double-digit cuts in (Medicaid) reimbursement and hundreds of thousands of people were dropped from the program,” Colyer said.

Kansas, he said, was not one of the 31 states.

“Gov. Brownback made the decision very early on to try our best to preserve the safety net and to be sure that programs we do have are effective and meet the needs of the person,” Colyer said. “And we need to look at the whole person. It’s not just treatment and access to medication; it’s also access to jobs and education.”

Colyer said the administration was working on several initiatives designed to expand access to job training and to encouraged employers to hire the disabled.

Alan Brumbaugh, a retired middle-school teacher who has a mentally ill son at Larned State Hospital, said he appreciated Colyer’s optimism.

“I think the administration wants to do the right thing,” he said. “But at the same time, I have to say we’re dealing with a (mental health) system that is totally stressed out. There are a lot of people out there who aren’t getting the services they need – they were getting them before, but they’re not getting them now.”

Since 2008, lawmakers have cut by almost two-thirds a state-funded grant that community mental health centers use to pay for services for people who are uninsured.

The Brownback administration has not proposed restoring the funding.

Earlier this year, Brownback proposed eliminating a $5 million grant that the centers use to fund services for mentally ill children.

The governor also has proposed reopening 36 instead of 50 beds at Rainbow Mental Health Facility in Kansas City.

The hospital was temporarily closed last year to address safety concerns raised during a State Fire Marshal’s inspection. It’s expected to reopen this summer.

“Our mental health system is in decline,” said Kansas Mental Health Coalition President Glen Yancey. “It’s been in decline for about five years now.”

Melissa Hudson, who lives in Columbus, said she had experienced the decline first hand.

“I’m a single mom. I have two small kids,” she said. “I have no family I can turn to. I had a life-or-death mental health crisis last year. I was mourning the death of my significant other and I had no choice, I had to be hospitalized. But all the hospitals in Kansas were full, so I ended up having to go to a hospital in Missouri. I could get in over there, I couldn’t get in here.”

Gary Parker, executive director for the Kansas Consumer Advisory Council for Adult Mental Health, said experiences like Hudson’s are becoming commonplace across the state.

“Overall, things are getting worse,” he said.