500 other behavioral health care workers<\/a>, including nurses, therapists and cleaning staff, were laid off in the span of three months. Those included employees of West Springs Hospital in Grand Junction, West Pines Behavioral Health in Wheat Ridge and Johnstown Heights Behavioral Health.\u00a0<\/p>\nSafety net providers who went through layoffs a few years ago blamed those cuts mainly on fewer people eligible for Medicaid after a post-pandemic rollback, but Aurora Mental Health is the first to point toward the state\u2019s two-year-old repayment model.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the first big center to have to do this,\u201d Phillips-Henry said in an interview Monday. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ll be the last. I think there are a lot more to come. We\u2019re all going to be adjusting, cutting back, asking, \u2018How do we preserve the services that are our core mission?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
State says say Aurora Mental Health mismanaged its finances<\/p>\n
State officials, meanwhile, accused Aurora Mental Health leaders of \u201cfinancial mismanagement\u201d and say that blaming the new state funding model is \u201cmisleading.\u201d While some other mental health centers realized earlier in the year that they would end up having to return surplus funds and asked for an adjustment in their payments, Aurora did not.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that Medicaid providers across the state are facing financial pressure and we are working with community partners to do what we can to provide support,\u201d said Marc Williams, a spokesperson for the healthcare policy department. \u201cHowever, their characterization of their financial challenges is completely misleading. It\u2019s unfortunate that Coloradans will be impacted by their financial mismanagement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The payment model is a national one that has worked elsewhere, he said. For the first two years of the new system, the state healthcare department is required to dispense the funds, then reconcile at the end of the year to recoup any overpayments. Mental health centers were notified by the state in March 2024 about strategies to track their payments and how to make adjustments throughout the year if needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Funding for safety net behavioral health providers in Colorado has more than doubled in the past five years, Williams said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The mental health center\u2019s required repayment is about $5.7 million, not the $7.2 million the center reported last week, he said Monday.<\/p>\n
Gov. Jared Polis, who has worked to improve the state\u2019s system of mental health care, also pushed back on Aurora Mental Health\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe assertion that these reductions are due to state and federal budget cuts simply isn\u2019t true,\u201d said Polis spokesperson Eric Maruyama. \u201cProviders like Aurora Mental Health are paid a rate that is intended to cover their costs,\u201d and the state cannot afford to \u201cadd an additional margin for providers like this one, to cover profits above the actual costs of care.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a letter to Aurora Mental Health, the chief financial officer of the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing dismissed the center\u2019s request that it forgo its repayment of the surplus funds. Besides the fact that repayment is required by a state and federal arrangement, the state doesn\u2019t have the money to give to Aurora Mental Health, Joshua Block wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not have the resources to support additional provider payments at this time,\u201d he wrote, adding that the state could work out a payment plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Phillips-Henry countered that Aurora Mental Health has been \u201cfully transparent\u201d with the state health policy department and that the department \u201chad complete access to our financials.\u201d The repayment amount dropped from $7.2 million to $5.7 million only after a rate adjustment \u201cdelivered to us the day after we were required to announce our reduction in force \u2014 a timeline of which they were fully aware,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the cuts in workforce, the mental health center is now \u201cfinancially stable,\u201d the CEO said, and will continue to fulfill the services required as a safety-net provider.<\/p>\n
About three-quarters of the state\u2019s safety net community mental health centers are operating at breakeven or a loss, according to a survey by the Colorado Behavioral Healthcare Council. And the majority of the state\u2019s about 20 centers are either on a hiring freeze or have eliminated staff positions.<\/p>\n
In an April letter to the legislature\u2019s Joint Budget Committee, the council asked lawmakers to take a serious look at the funding model. \u201cThis is not a request for new funding,\u201d the council wrote. \u201cIt is a question of whether existing state investment is structured to support system stability, meet statutory obligations, and maximize available federal funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council\u2019s CEO, Kara Johnson-Hufford, told The Sun that the financial instability of the system is not just an Aurora problem, but a question of whether Colorado has set up its funding model in a way that can sustain major state investments in behavioral health that were meant to increase access and crisis response. Colorado is missing out on tens of millions of dollars in federal Medicaid funding because of its rate structure, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s designed to recover cost, not sustain the system or allow providers to plan, invest, or retain efficiency gains,\u201d Johnson-Hufford said via email. \u201cThat mismatch is starting to show up in tangible ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides layoffs, some centers are shrinking capacity, including in crisis care and 24\/7 response, she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a signal that the system is under structural strain. And when that capacity shrinks, the impact doesn\u2019t disappear, it shifts to emergency departments, law enforcement, and county systems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Residential services, other programs closing too<\/p>\n
Aurora Mental Health said it is requiring its leadership staff to take unpaid time off, leaving open positions unfilled, eliminating two paid holidays and reducing travel and other administrative expenses. Those efforts saved $1.4 million and 22 jobs, CEO Phillips-Henry said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She blamed the current funding model, saying it is designed to \u201cpay providers at cost with no operating margin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, those cost savings are not enough to fill the gap we face,\u201d she said. \u201cColorado\u2019s safety-net behavioral health system rests on a payment model that threatens our ability to serve the people who need us most. That must change. Safety-net providers need stability in order to continue serving our communities, especially the most vulnerable among us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to the staff cuts, the center is closing a few programs, including a short-term housing program for people transitioning from psychiatric hospitals to the community. The center is also closing a program that helps refugees and immigrants who are new to Aurora and have experienced human trafficking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that if we help them preventively, it helps other costs down the line,\u201d Phillips-Henry said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Employees were given a 60-day notice that their jobs are ending June 30, and staff are working to connect affected clients to other local providers.<\/p>\n
Type of Story: News<\/p>\n
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aurora Mental Health & Recovery is the latest community mental health center to drastically cut its workforce, eliminating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[276],"tags":[206409,39546,18,135,19,17,3920,167,502],"class_list":{"0":"post-470559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-aurora-mental-health","9":"tag-behavioral-health","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-medicaid","15":"tag-mental-health","16":"tag-mentalhealth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116525437349197589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}