A. Inadequate funding of community mental health services and supports has shifted cost to more expensive interventions, such as emergency rooms, prisons, jails, homeless shelters, crises units, etc. Georgia must commit to adequate funding of community mental health services and supports, spending its resources on prevention and treatment programs that are proven more cost-effective vs. funding of crises services with better outcomes.

B. Georgia’s mental health providers and mental health consumers need unrestricted access to the medications that can be tailored to each individual’s mental health needs. Policies that restrict access to mental health medications (e.g., prior-authorization, step-therapy, preferred drug lists, etc.) have proven to increase cost within Georgia’s Medicaid program. Studies have documented increases in outpatient treatment cost, poorer adherence rates and more adverse events when barriers are placed on the medications for people with serious and persistent mental illnesses. These increases in cost further reduce the available resources for community treatment.

C. Inadequate funding of the state’s psychiatric hospital system has created a crisis, where patients are often unable to be treated in a safe environment or are discharged prematurely before they are stable enough to be returned to the community. The problem led to a U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the state’s psychiatric hospital system. Georgia’s residents in need of inpatient psychiatric services deserve inpatient services that are safe, effective and help them return to the communities where they live.