Agenda - Council - 09/13/2022 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

commenters suggested that funding should be available broadly and quickly for this purpose, recommending that funding available for behavioral health not be tied to the amount of revenue loss experienced by the recipient. Treasury Response: In the final rule, Treasury is maintaining this enumerated eligible use category and clarifying that it covers an expansive array of services for prevention, treatment, recovery, and harm reduction for mental health, substance use, and other behavioral health challenges caused or exacerbated by the public health emergency. The specific services listed in the interim final rule also remain eligible.77 Treasury is further clarifying that when providing behavioral health services, recipients can identify the impacted population as the general public and, as with all enumerated eligible uses, presume that all programs and services are reasonably proportional responses to the harm identified unless a response is grossly disproportionate to the type or extent of harm experienced. In contrast, capital expenditures are not considered "programs and services" and are not presumed to be reasonably proportional responses to an identified harm except as provided in section Capital Expenditures in General Provisions: Other. In other words, recipients can provide behavioral health services to members of the general public without any further analysis of impacts of the pandemic on those individuals and whether the service is responsive. Recipients may also use this eligible use category to respond to increased rates of behavioral health challenges at a population level or, at an individual level, new behavioral health challenges or exacerbation of pre-existing challenges, including new barriers to accessing treatment. 77 Hotlines or warmlines, crisis intervention, overdose prevention, infectious disease prevention, and services or outreach to promote access to physical or behavioral health primary care and preventative medicine. 67