Community partners working to keep mental health patients on their medication
Enid News & EagleJul 16, 2017
Those figures, provided by the
"What we were seeing -- it was a continuous issue that kept coming up -- was people weren't staying on their medication after they left inpatient care," Randolph said.
"This is the story of mental health treatment in our country in recent years," Ezzell said. "People have to become really bad on the streets, cause a problem, and then they get institutionalized for a very short period of time, and then they're discharged without medication and eventually end up in the same place. It's a vicious cycle."
The HSA and CDSA are working to break that cycle by providing low-income, uninsured patients with the mental health medication they need, to bridge the gap between inpatient care and follow-on outpatient treatment.
The need
Uninsured and indigent mental health patients in northwest
NCBH operates an inpatient mental health facility at
NCBH executive director
Once a patient is under the care of a psychiatrist at NCBH there are patient assistance programs to connect patients with government prescription drug programs, and she said NCBH won't refuse prescription medication to clients due to inability to pay.
But, she said, it's "incredibly important" the patients stay on their medication during that two week transition.
"They've been stabilized on that medication, and then when they're released you want them to stay on that," Hoffman said. "Otherwise, we're defeating the purpose of them receiving inpatient care.
"We want to get them on their medication as soon as we can," Hoffman said, "because if they're not on their medication, they're eventually going to end up back in-patient."
Hoffman said NCBH provides patients leaving
But, in
The medication gap
Dr.
"We are seeing more patients in this area than before," Ghaznavi said. "Since we opened, we have not been empty for a single day."
Resilience provides inpatient care without the need for a 100-mile drive to
Patients leaving Resilience inpatient care, then, must wait until they are seen at NCBH to start receiving more medication, if they do not have medical insurance or the means to purchase the medication on their own.
"There is a national crisis in psychiatric care providers," Harling said, "and for Northwest Behavioral to be able to keep up with the demand -- there's just not enough providers."
Harling said Resilience staff work to get patients in for follow-up care within several days of being discharged, and NCBH usually is able to get a patient in to see a case manager within that timeframe. But, he said, it may be two weeks or more before a patient can see a psychiatrist in an outpatient setting, and begin receiving follow-on medication.
And, the number of patients leaving Resilience who don't have insurance, and who can't afford to purchase their medication, is on the rise.
Billingslea said 30-40 percent of patients admitted to Resilience now have no funding source for their care, or medication.
Limited resources
CDSA is working to help those patients stay on their medication as they wait for ongoing care at NCBH, but the nonprofit has no dedicated funding source to meet the growing demand.
"We have a very small emergency assistance program for people who need help with their medication," Ezzell said. "But, people started showing up with mental health medication needs, and we didn't have the resources to meet it."
"Most of the people I see have no insurance coverage at all, and they're not able to work because of the severity of their illness," Shorter said. "We're just helping them pay for their first set of medication, to hopefully get them to their first set of appointments."
Ezzell said CDSA has received some funds from a local church to help with the transitional mental health medication needs, but the amount of money available is far outstripped by the need.
"They go into inpatient treatment, and while they're there they get stabilized with the medication they need," Ezzell said. "But then, they get discharged with no medication, and our office is working to get them their medication for several weeks while they're waiting to be seen.
"Treatment can be very effective," Ezzell said, "but there needs to be continuity, and the thought was 'Let's get them the medication they need during that gap while they're waiting to be seen.'"
In order to help cover the need HSA voted in June to provide CDSA with
Ezzell said those funds have helped, but there's no budget to continue the funding, and in one month
Shorter said she works with pharmacies, drug manufacturers, and Rx for
"I'm trying to be a good steward of the money, but also get the clients where they need to be," Shorter said.
So far it's cost about
A more comprehensive approach
Ezzell said the mental health medication program is filling an emergent need -- in the short term -- but a more comprehensive approach, and more funding, will be needed in the long-term.
"The mental health subcommittee is trying to look at the bigger picture and make sure when people are discharged that they're tracked and taken care of during that transition," Ezzell said.
The HSA is working to establish a Program of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) Team -- an approach that has been widely-used in other communities to manage and track patients between inpatient and through outpatient care, to improve outcomes and reduce the need for emergent inpatient services.
For now, CDSA and HSA are working to keep the patients on their medication, as a first step in improving outcomes for indigent mental health patients in the community.
"At this point it's kind of a band-aid," Randolph said. "It's not a sure thing that the resources will be there to help in the future."
Ezzell said currently there is no funding source to replenish the program when the initial
"We'll try to find some more money to fund this," Ezzell said. "We're not funded to meet 100 percent of the community's needs. We do what we can. As long as there's a need and we feel like we can make a long-term difference, we're going to look for a way to do that."
Ezzell said CDSA does accept tax-deductible donations, and funds can be earmarked specifically for the mental health medication program. And keeping the program funded, she said, could help prevent much greater costs to the community in the future.
"There's a cost to the community," Ezzell said. "If someone can stay productive in the community, that's far better and far less costly than them falling down, falling off their medication, and ending up in crisis."
For more information on the mental health medication program, or to donate, contact Shorter or Ezzell at CDSA at (580) 242-6131.
___
(c)2017 the Enid News & Eagle (Enid, Okla.)
Visit the Enid News & Eagle (Enid, Okla.) at www.enidnews.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.