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Mental Health services cut due to drop in Medicaid revenue
By Patrick McCreless
PATRICKM@CULLMANTIMES.COM
The Cullman Area Mental Health Authority has had to cut back on certain services over the last two years due to decreases in Medicaid revenue.
According to the Alabama Department of Examiners and Public Accounts’ latest annual audit of the authority, the organization’s total revenues during its 2007 fiscal year were 3.81 percent less than budgeted.
The audit adds that revenues during the authority’s 2007 fiscal year were lower than its 2006 fiscal year by $134,038. The audit states the drop in revenue is due solely to a decrease in Medicaid billing.
Medicaid currently makes up 33.06 percent of the authority’s annual revenue.
“We’ve been more cautious of what we bill,” said Chris Van Dyke, executive director of the authority.
Van Dyke explained that over the past few years, the federal government has tried to reign in costs by more strictly enforcing rules on who can receive Medicaid funding and for what purposes.
“When they (government) say a rule was broken, they charge us back ... they charge us a lot,” Van Dyke said. “We don’t want that to happen. We adjusted and became much more cautious in our billing.”
To lower its Medicaid billing and thereby lower its chances of paying money back to the government, Van Dyke said the authority cut some services, mainly in its geriatric division.
“We serve many nursing homes in the county,” Van Dyke said. “We’ve had to cut way back on that. It did hurt us.”
Over the years, the authority has provided mental therapy to many of the county’s elderly as well as basic living skills training.
“We help people be as functional and independent as possible,” Van Dyke said.
Van Dyke said due to the loss in revenue, the authority has lost several employees through attrition and cannot afford to replace them.
“That hasn’t changed how our clients get serviced ... but our caseload is higher than it used to be,” he said. “That’s not a good thing.”
The authority’s main operations include helping adults with mental illness, a children services program and a substance abuse program. Van Dyke said the lack of revenue has meant a rise in caseload work for those programs much like for the geriatric division. However, he noted that unlike the geriatric division, the other programs have not experienced a reduction in services.
For additional funding for the geriatric division, Van Dyke said the authority turned to the local United Way earlier this year but was denied.
“After United Way allocated funding to its other agencies, it didn’t have any left over,” Van Dyke said.
The authority has also requested more funding from the Cullman City Council and the Cullman County Commission.
“The city council gave us an increase two years ago but its been many years since we received an increase from the county,” Van Dyke said.
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