COVID-19, the resulting behavioral health crisis (including those related to mental health and substance use disorders (SUD)), and calls for law enforcement reform related to behavioral health crisis response have heightened the urgency among federal, state, and local policymakers to expand access to behavioral health crisis services. Recently, the federal government has provided new funding opportunities to states to improve access to behavioral health crisis services, including mobile crisis services. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP) gives states the option of covering community mobile crisis intervention services in Medicaid for five years beginning in April 2022 (see here for additional information on the ARP mobile crisis option).

Originally prepared for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health and Value Strategies program.