Mental health and substance abuse run under the radar for overall impact in the Medicaid industry. But their role in Medicaid as a whole is critical. There are various topics worth review such as pervasiveness, funding, community care, fraud, care coordination, youth, veterans, and more. As we investigate and delve deeper into the issues we thought it helpful to first present a snapshot of the topics.

Prevalence of Mental Illness

As we said in our previous coverage, 1 in 5 Americans is estimated to have a diagnosable mental illness with 50% of the population having some form of mental illness in their lifetime.

LEADING THE PACK)---Depression and anxiety are the two top healthcare costs for employers in the United States because of hidden costs such as work absence and low productivity. [1] 

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) list expenditures of mental health for all Americans in 2006 at $57.5 billion.[2] With ten year trends from 1996 to 2006 showing continuous increase, we estimate costs to look as follows for the next decade.

With this NAMI data, mental illness is equivalent to cancer expenditures yet, mental illness has a faster growth rate. We are not just talking more prevalent; we are also talking more expensive. [3]

It is estimated by 2020 that mental health and substance abuse diagnosis will rank first in worldwide disabilities.   #1 [4]

Studies show that Americans with low socio economic status (aka, our Medicaid population) are associated with higher onset of depression.[5]  Now, take reform into account and consider the population figures covered by Medicaid who are in need of mental health services. We can comfortably infer with these statistics that behavioral health is a sleeping giant and what is now a small percentage of total Medicaid spending should not be taken lightly.

By Stacy Rockey

Stacy is a National Certified Counselor with experience providing mental health counseling to United States military forces as well as adult populations in private practice.