Mental Health

New nurses are being welcomed by institutions that have mental health nursing jobs currently posted. These jobs are open to all nurses whether you have experience or are fresh out of school. With these jobs you will learn new and valuable nursing skills and you will expand your knowledge base daily. Many of the mental health nursing jobs come with state or federal benefits that provide more days off and other compensations and benefits. Most of the positions offer to pay your tuition if you choose to return to school to seek a bachelor’s or master’s degree. If you select your job from those that are affiliated with state backed universities, your children can also receive free tuition.

There are thousands of positions open right now in your own community. Some of them you will find in public or state run facilities. Other jobs are available in privately run psychiatric treatment centers. These jobs all have on the job training as well as in depth training that will be offered through many different classes and seminars. Whether you are a nurse with years of experience or are a new nurse who has just passed boards there is a position available for you now.

Some nurses feel as though they may not be ready or equipped to handle the demands of these types of environments and nursing jobs. These jobs encourage new graduates to apply because they need nurses who are caring and compassionate. These traits are valued just as much as on the job experience. You should not let a lack of experience hold you back from inquiring about openings in the mental health field.

There are some mental health nursing jobs that will provide you with not only job skills and experience, but a new understanding of your fellow man. Nurses who now work in treatment centers can tell you about the rewards that come with knowing that you are truly making a difference in someone’s life.

Due to greater understanding of how many Americans live with mental illnesses and addiction disorders and how expensive the total healthcare expenditures are for this group, we have reached a critical tipping point when it comes to healthcare reform. We understand the importance of treating the healthcare needs of individuals with serious mental illnesses and responding to the behavioral healthcare needs of all Americans. This is creating a series of exciting opportunities for the behavioral health community and a series of unprecedented challenges mental-health organizations across the U.S. are determined to provide expertise and leadership that supports member organizations, federal agencies, states, health plans, and consumer groups in ensuring that the key issues facing persons with mental-health and substance use disorders are properly addressed and integrated into healthcare reform.

In anticipation of parity and mental healthcare reform legislation, the many national and community mental health organizations have been thinking, meeting and writing for well over a year. Their work continues and their outputs guide those organizations lobbying for government healthcare reform..

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY

1. Mental Health/Substance Use Health Provider Capacity Building: Community mental health and substance use treatment organizations, group practices, and individual clinicians will need to improve their ability to provide measurable, high-performing, prevention, early intervention, recovery and wellness oriented services and supports.

2. Person-Centered Healthcare Homes: There will be much greater demand for integrating mental health and substance use clinicians into primary care practices and primary care providers into mental health and substance use treatment organizations, using emerging and best practice clinical models and robust linkages between primary care and specialty behavioral healthcare.

3. Peer Counselors and Consumer Operated Services: We will see expansion of consumer-operated services and integration of peers into the mental health and substance use workforce and service array, underscoring the critical role these efforts play in supporting the recovery and wellness of persons with mental health and substance use disorders.

4. Mental Health Clinic Guidelines: The pace of development and dissemination of mental health and substance use clinical guidelines and clinical tools will increase with support from the new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and other research and implementation efforts. Of course, part of this initiative includes helping mental illness patients find a mental health clinic nearby.

MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM MANAGEMENT

5. Medicaid Expansion and Health Insurance Exchanges: States will need to undertake major change processes to improve the quality and value of mental health and substance use services at parity as they redesign their Medicaid systems to prepare for expansion and design Health Insurance Exchanges. Provider organizations will need to be able to work with new Medicaid designs and contract with and bill services through the Exchanges.

6. Employer-Sponsored Health Plans and Parity: Employers and benefits managers will need to redefine how to use behavioral health services to address absenteeism and presenteeism and develop a more resilient and productive workforce. Provider organizations will need to tailor their service offerings to meet employer needs and work with their contracting and billing systems.

7. Accountable Care Organizations and Health Plan Redesign: Payers will encourage and in some cases mandate the development of new management structures that support healthcare reform including Accountable Care Organizations and health plan redesign, providing guidance on how mental health and substance use should be included to improve quality and better manage total healthcare expenditures. Provider organizations should take part in and become owners of ACOs that develop in their communities.

MENTAL HEALTHCARE INFRASTRUCTURE

8. Quality Improvement for Mental Healthcare: Organizations including the National Quality Forum will accelerate the development of a national quality improvement strategy that contains mental-health and substance use performance measures that will be used to improve delivery of mental-health and substance use services, patient health outcomes, and population health and manage costs. Provider organizations will need to develop the infrastructure to operate within this framework.

9. Health Information Technology: Federal and state HIT initiatives need to reflect the importance of mental-health and substance use services and include mental-health and substance use providers and data requirements in funding, design work, and infrastructure development. Provider organizations will need to be able to implement electronic health records and patient registries and connect these systems to community health information networks and health information exchanges.

10. Healthcare Payment Reform: Payers and health plans will need to design and implement new payment mechanisms including case rates and capitation that contain value-based purchasing and value-based insurance design strategies that are appropriate for persons with mental health and substance use disorders. Providers will need to adapt their practice management and billing systems and work processes in order to work with these new mechanisms.

11. Workforce Development: Major efforts including work of the new Workforce Advisory Committee will be needed to develop a national workforce strategy to meet the needs of persons with mental health and substance use disorder including expansion of peer counselors. Provider organizations will need to participate in these efforts and be ready to ramp up their workforce to meet unfolding demand.

As demand for mental health and addictions treatment grows, insurance coverage must be preserved and expanded. It’s critical that we preserve the guarantee of Medicaid coverage for low income, disabled Americans. Commercial parity must be passed; Medicare parity must follow; and if we accept what research is teaching us–that addictions are chronic, relapsing conditions that require ongoing monitoring and management, just like diabetes, asthma, and yes like mental illnesses–then we must act. We must lead the fight to restore eligibility for social security disability for people with addiction disorders.

Data collected by non-profit organizations documents increased demand and increased numbers of uninsured. States reallocated their general fund mental health dollars to the Medicaid match. And now state plans to cover the uninsured are floundering. This leaves large numbers of individuals with treatable mental illnesses in our overburdened emergency rooms and without access to the services that can engage them, treat them, and return them to work.

We’re denying our economy productive taxpayers. We’re wasting human lives. We must introduce and champion a federal funding stream to cover the mental health and addictions treatment costs of the uninsured.

The Community Mental Health Service Improvement Act begins to address our workforce crisis, but it’s just a beginning.

We cannot stand by and watch our best and brightest become plastic surgeons and investment bankers. Skilled staff demands adequate compensation. We must be attractive to leaders that reflect the diversity of our communities. And we can’t allow people with serious mental illnesses or addictions to wait for weeks and months for an appointment with a psychiatrist. We must be clear and forceful advocates for cost based reimbursement that supports salaries that can attract and retain skilled staff.

If we truly want to narrow the gap between science and service, we must stop investing in manuals and planning grants, and start investing in retooling the organizations that deliver services.

We must preserve, strengthen and expand the mental health and addictions treatment capacity in this country. But it has not been and it will not be easy.

We are part of a healthcare system that reflects the American belief in the marketplace. A healthcare system that talks universal coverage but hates taxes. A healthcare system that resists cost containment, counting on disease management and prevention for savings, although so far they show little evidence of delivering savings. A healthcare system that’s promoting “medical homes” as the newest cost saving strategy, confusing a strategy to improve the quality of care with one that saves money.

But we do know something about saving money. Pioneering studies are telling us that there are enormous disparities in healthcare expenditures from one region of our country to another, with no difference in healthcare outcomes. If the entire nation could bring its costs down to match the lower spending regions, we would cut 20 to 30 percent off America’s healthcare bill. Most of the difference in spending is for hospital care. Hospitalization, including inpatient psychiatric care, is a vital intervention that must be available but in many communities we can do better.

If we’re serious about improving consumer outcomes, point of service is where improvement will occur.