The recently enacted American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP), provides an exciting opportunity for states and localities to invest in a more equitable, comprehensive, and integrated crisis system that connects individuals in behavioral health crisis with specialized and appropriate behavioral health treatment. The new mobile crisis provision can help states address rising behavioral health needs worsened by COVID-19. States that take up the new option to provide community mobile crisis intervention services for a five-year period beginning in April 2022 will receive an 85 percent enhanced federal matching rate for qualifying services for the first three years of state coverage. To further encourage states, ARP includes $15 million in planning grants to support state efforts to develop a state plan amendment (SPA) or waiver request.

State Health and Value Strategies hosted a webinar during which experts from Manatt Health provided an overview and considerations on the state option to provide community mobile crisis interventions services included in ARP. Presenters walked through key questions on the new option, reviewed promising models for crisis mobile intervention services, and shared strategies for equitable design and implementation. The webinar  included a question and answer session during which webinar participants posed their questions to the experts on the line. In case you missed it, the corresponding expert perspective, American Rescue Plan Provides a New Opportunity for States to Invest in Equitable, Comprehensive and Integrated Crisis Services, is posted on our website.