The following is an ongoing discussion on my personal Facebook page - Dede Moon Ranahan. If you’re on Facebook, please click on my page and join the conversation. Or enter your comments through the comment link below. Or send your comments to me in an email: dede@soonerthantomorrow.com
SMI (SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS) ADVOCATES AND SUPPORTERS
GOAL: This effort is short-term. To get SMI recommendations for a national SMI plan before the 2020 presidential candidates (Republican, Democrat, Independent). None of them are currently talking about SMI (not mental health, not drug addiction). SMI. The SMI community is looking for a candidate/s who will champion SMI and its concomitant issues. With adults and children impacted and their immediate families, we represent roughly 72 million people in the US.
THE ASK: That candidates talk about SMI in their campaign appearances and debates and post a national SMI plan on their campaign websites.
To encourage them, we'll be submitting a cover letter, one-page outlined/bulleted plan, references and resources to aid them in developing their plan, and if they will read that far, the full list of 18 topic areas.
RESULTS OF YOUR VOTES FOR THE TOP 5 ISSUES FOR A ONE-PAGE PLAN:
1) Reclassification of SMI as neurological brain disorders
2) IMD (Institutes for Mental Disease Exclusion)
3) HIPAA Reform (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
4) Continuum of Care
5) Decriminalization of SMI
NOW WE MUST REFINE THIS TOP 5 LIST.
PLEASE ANSWER 1 OR MORE OF THESE QUESTIONS IN A FEW SENTENCES:
1) Why is reclassification of SMI important?
2 )Why is IMD repeal important?
3) Why is HIPAA reform important?
4) Why is a Continuum of Care important?
5) Why is Decriminalization of SMI important?
1) Name one specific action a president can take to advance the reclassification of SMI.
2) Name one specific action a president can take to advance IMD repeal?
3) Name one specific action a president can take to advance HIPAA reform?
4) Name one specific action a president can take to advance a Continuum of Care?
5) Name one specific action a president can take to advance the Decriminalization of SMI.
Thanks, Dede
1. RECLASSIFICATION OF SMI
-Reclassify schizophrenia and related disorders as neurological conditions or neurobiological brain disorders. Eliminate “behavioral health” nomenclature.
2. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
-Reform current HIPAA laws.
-Present patient and family with a social worker to support the family unit throughout the care process including medication and psychiatric treatment.
-Require mandatory training for everyone in the medical profession about HIPAA and a required test on proven knowledge.
-Develop a federal program for the administration of a psychiatric advance directive (PAD) which includes a universal release of information and designates an agent if capacity is lost. Must include enforcement mechanisms to require mental health/illness facilities to follow the directives.
3. IMD (Medicaid’s Institutes for Mental Disease Exclusion)
-Repeal it.
-To prevent warehousing, use unscheduled check-ups on those receiving services.
4. A FULL CONTINUUM OF CARE
-Early intervention at all stages of illness.
-Provide Inpatient (IMD waivers), Outpatient (ACT, FACT, PACT, AOT, Clubhouses), Housing (full array from locked stabilization to unlocked intensive, medium intensive, peer-run PSH, Asylum).
-Require a psychiatric standard of care for various SMI diagnoses like other medical specialties. Diagnosis should be staged as cancer is.
-Provide more long-term care.
-Remove ER’s as entry for mental health hospitalization. The ER process and chaotic environment are not conducive to the well-being of SMI patients.
-Give federal assistance to states providing supportive housing.
5. DECRIMINALIZE SMI
-Eliminate solitary confinement in jails and prisons.
-Support nationwide civil mental health courts and expand criminal ones that are already established to keep SMI out of jails and prisons.
-Establish mental health courts on a federal level, and coordinate federal courts and state-run mental health facilities.
-Move crimes that SMI commit in the federal system into state courts.
-Provide a digitized system to connect county/hospital medical records to jails and prisons.
-Mandate a way for families to provide medical history to jail/prison doctors to inform treatment.
-Provide uniform psychiatric screening of the incarcerated and use standardized protocols for medication of SMI prisoners.
-Require strict limits on waiting for trial time.