Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics Tackle Mental Health, Substance Use Crises with Expanded Access to Care

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) continue to expand access to care, alleviate workforce challenges and strengthen the crisis care system, according to new data from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing’s 2022 CCBHC Impact Report conducted by The Harris Poll — an online survey conducted between July and August, among 249 CCBHCs. CCBHCs offer access to mental health services much faster than the national average wait time and provide access to certain forms of substance use disorder treatment at vastly higher rates than non-CCBHCs.

The National Council for Mental Wellbeing, along with its members and state and federal policymakers, created the framework for CCBHCs more than a dozen years ago and have collaborated closely on implementing this new and transformative model. CCBHCs are clinics — either certified by their states as CCBHCs or recipients of a federal CCBHC grant — that receive flexible funding to expand the scope of mental health and substance use services in their community. They serve anyone who walks through the door, regardless of their diagnosis and insurance status.

Download the 2022 CCBHC Impact Report »

“The CCBHC model continues to represent our nation’s best response to the ongoing mental health and substance use crises. CCBHCs expand access to comprehensive and integrated care at a time an overwhelming majority of people in the United States agree our country is experiencing a mental health crisis. Their proven ability to transform how people access care in their communities is a blueprint for the future of mental health and substance use continuum of care in America.”     

Chuck Ingoglia, president and CEO of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing

Since 2017, when the first CCBHCs were established, the National Council for Mental Wellbeing has surveyed CCBHCs and grantees annually to glean insights into their activities and outcomes. This year’s report provides further proof of the remarkable success of the program, demonstrating evidence-based clinical care supported with effective financing can dramatically increase access to care and provide comprehensive and lifesaving services nationwide.

The report comes on the heels of an announcement from the Biden-Harris administration that CCBHCs will be expanded nationwide: applications for planning grants are now available to help more states implement the CCBHC model, using funding authorized by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The announcement was made at a press conference on October 18, which included remarks from Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CCBHC legislative architects Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), as well as representatives from a CCBHC and law enforcement. 

Key highlights from the National Council’s 2022 survey of active CCBHCs:

CCBHCs are serving millions and providing thousands of new clients with needed care.

• 1.2 million people are currently served annually across the 249 responding clinics, which means an estimated 2.1 million[i] are served nationwide by all CCBHCs and grantees.
• CCBHCs and grantees who reported an increase in their caseload, on average, serve more than 900 more people per clinic than prior to CCBHC implementation, a 23% increase.

The CCBHC model is helping address health disparities, enabling clinics to improve access to care for underserved communities.

• Since becoming a CCBHC, 100% report taking steps to improve access to care and reduce health disparities among people of color and other historically marginalized populations. At the top of the list is staff training on culturally sensitive/competent care (94%).

CCBHCs deliver lifesaving crisis support services in their communities, which helps divert people in crisis from hospitals, emergency departments and jails.

• Either directly or through referral, 98% of respondents offer access to 24/7 crisis lines, 97% offer access to mobile crisis response and 94% offer access to crisis stabilization services.

CCBHCs and grantees are addressing the nation’s opioid crisis by dramatically expanding access to medication-assisted treatment (MAT).

• 82% of CCBHCs and grantees use one or more forms of MAT for opioid use disorder, while only 58% of substance use clinics nationwide provide any MAT services[ii]

The CCBHC model is alleviating the impact of the community-based mental health and substance use treatment workforce shortage by enabling clinics to increase hiring.

• Responding clinics hired 6,220 new staff positions, or an average of 27 new staff per clinic, as a result of becoming a CCBHC, with an estimated 11,240 new staff positions added across all CCBHCs and grantees[iii].

Background

The CCBHC model was originally implemented in an eight state in a 2017 demonstration program through the passage of the Excellence in Mental Health Care Act of 2014, with two states added to the demonstration in 2020. Since 2018, grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) have also funded clinics in dozens of states to take on the activities and services of a CCBHC.

These grants have proven to be a vital springboard to CCBHC implementation, positioning clinics and states for further delivery system transformations as they implement the CCBHC model in their Medicaid programs. Under the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the demonstration will expand to include 10 new states every two years, starting in 2024 — and will ultimately offer all states the opportunity to translate their grantees’ work into a new, sustainable nationwide model of care.

Survey Methodology

The research was conducted online in the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing among 249 certified community behavioral health clinics (CCBHCs and grantees). The survey was conducted July 14th – August 26th, 2022.

Raw data were not weighted and are therefore only representative of the individuals who completed the survey.

Respondents for this survey were among the 449 total participating CCBHCs and grantees who were asked to participate — of which 249 participated in our survey and are included in the final results. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. For this study, the sample data is accurate to within + 6.2 percentage points using a 95% confidence level.  This credible interval will be wider among subsets of the surveyed population of interest.   

All sample surveys and polls are subject to other multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including, but not limited to coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. 

[i] Estimate based on survey responses indicating 249 respondents served 1,188,856 clients annually as of the date of the survey.

[ii] Opioid & Health Indicators Database: Facilities Providing at Least Two Different Forms of Medication Assisted Treatment. amfAR. (2022). Retrieved from https://opioid.amfar.org/indicator/TMAT_fac

[iii] Estimate based on survey responses indicating 249 respondents had 6,220 newly created staff positions as a result of becoming a CCBHC as of the date of the survey.