Behavioral Health

Today, the Louisiana Department of Health released Louisiana’s Opioid Response Plan, the first of its kind for the state. The plan aims to successfully reduce Louisiana’s opioid epidemic by implementing strategies to address the under-reporting of opioid deaths, enhance monitoring of opioid prescriptions and increase access to treatment services.

The charge of Act 158 of the 2015 Regular Legislative Session was to provide transparency relative to Medicaid managed care programs. Within the Office of Behavioral Health (OBH), this involves the Coordinated System of Care (CSoC) program. Magellan Health Services of Louisiana, Inc. (Magellan) administers the CSoC program. This report outlines responses to the requests made by the legislature in Act 158 relative to Magellan's management of care within CSoC program.

In its most recent audit, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor reviewed the Louisiana Department of Health and identified a data systems issue that resulted in information not transmitted to the Department from its Medicaid managed care organizations.

The system is intended to serve people who are experiencing a mental or behavioral health crisis. A question-and-answer session will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, March 14 in Room 118 of the Bienville Building, 628 N. Fourth St., Baton Rouge.

Gov. John Bel Edwards has proclaimed March 2019 as Problem Gambling Awareness Month in Louisiana. The month-long observance promotes awareness of the resources available to those experiencing problems with gambling.

Louisiana has been chosen as one of a select group of states to partner with Shatterproof, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to ending addiction, on the development and implementation of a rating system for addiction treatment programs. The state joins Massachusetts and New York, both of which have joined the pilot project in recent weeks.

The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH), Office of Behavioral Health (OBH) is issuing a Request for Information (RFI) for qualified proposers to provide Statewide Self-Supportive Recovery Homes for Individuals on Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT).

Annually, the Department of Health and Hospitals, Office of Behavioral Health is required to prepare an annual report of all administrative rulemaking procedures taken over the past year and submit the report to the House Committee on Health and Welfare and the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare.

This week, the Louisiana Department of Health received over $24 million in grant funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to combat the opioid epidemic in the state of Louisiana.

The State of Louisiana and the Louisiana Department of Health announced an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to help ensure that people with serious mental illnesses have the opportunity to live in a community setting.