Are These 3 Things Hurting Mental Health Services at Your Hospital?
Historically, hospitals have limited mental health services to the point of not developing dedicated inpatient programs. After all, that is what mental hospitals are for, right? That may have been the way things were in the past, but it is not how they are now. Times have changed. Hospitals are now offering more mental health services than ever before.
How about your hospital? Does it have an inpatient program through which patients can access the care they need? And if so, has your administration put mental health services on the back burner over the last several years?
No doubt the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way hospitals operate. A lot of the changes implemented have been made permanent. Some are still in place even though there are plans to revert to pre-pandemic scenarios. At any rate, one of the things we have observed as a behavioral health consulting company is that hospitals are struggling to provide sufficient mental health services.
From our perspective, it seems that there are three key things getting in the way of success:
1. Extremely Busy Emergency Departments
Even prior to the onset of the pandemic, hospital emergency departments (EDs) were extremely busy. People have been using EDs as resources for primary care for a number of years now. But the pandemic created a surge in ED demand. Unfortunately, a lot of patients who now enter the ED are suffering with mental health challenges.
As a behavioral health management company, we have observed that some hospitals fail to develop mental health programs because they spend so much time treating mental health issues in the ED. The ED is swallowing up all their resources. Administration sincerely wants to develop programs, but they cannot see a way to get there without first solving the ED problem.
2. Profound Staff Shortages
Next up are the profound staffing shortages we are familiar with across healthcare. There are just not enough healthcare workers to go around. Staffing shortages were a problem before COVID; they were exacerbated by COVID thanks to early retirements and healthcare workers seeking new careers they perceived as less dangerous and demanding.
Hospitals will always have a challenging time developing inpatient behavioral health programs if they do not have the staff to assign to those programs. Moreover, it is not reasonable to even begin considering developing a program if a hospital cannot hire enough employees to staff the unit.
3. The Complexities of Billing
Finally, the medical billing system is extremely complicated at every level. Unfortunately, billing can be especially difficult when it comes to mental health services. Codes are constantly changing and applying the right codes serves as a constant challenge, given that there are many ways to bill mental health services. Here is the bottom line: coding and billing staff need extensive training to master billing in mental health. So once again, hospitals are up against staffing issues.
Without qualified medical coders and billers, billing for mental health services can be a nightmare. For some hospitals, the nightmare just is not worth it. Is your hospital currently facing these challenges?
Horizon Health specializes in behavioral health management and consulting. We want you to know that all three issues discussed in this post can be addressed. They do not have to hurt your hospital’s ability to offer inpatient behavioral health services. You can move treating mental health issues out of the ED and into a dedicated department that works as effectively and efficiently as any other department in your hospital.