Leadership vacuum
Re: the June 7 article “Mental health care reductions take effect,†I think the fundamental problem with the reform effort is a lack of leadership from anyone with the right combination of clout and concern.
Outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom and Governor Easley both own a large share of the responsibilities for the system’s failings.
The recent rate cut for Community Support Services is a glaring example of the myopic, hasty, and callous decision-making process that has become the hallmark of mental health reform. The Secretary was correct that having unqualified people providing this important service is a problem.
However, those who designed and approved the system are at fault for failing to anticipate that they had developed a service model that not only allowed for this situation to take place, but actually encouraged it.
When you introduce market forces to the system and allow agencies to bill at the same rate for services provided by high school educated workers and those provided by master’s level professionals, it should not take Milton Friedman to anticipate the result.
Rather than correcting the problem by tying rates to credentials, the Secretary implemented a “solution†(reduced reimbursement rates) that insures that the problem of poor service quality persists. Let’s hope the next Secretary (and Governor) take a more thoughtful approach when manipulating a system that provides a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable North Carolinians.
Mark Sullivan, MSW
Executive Director, Mental Health Association in Orange Count