Lakeside Center Crisis Stabilization Program, a mental healthcare agency, provides crisis services to people in mental distress. The program is funded from a mix of federal and state sources including the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
State and federal policies that impact the agency’s funding include the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which expanded access to mental health services through Medicaid and private insurance, and the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), which requires insurance plans to cover mental health and substance use disorders at the same level as physical health conditions.
The ACA has had a significant impact on the agency’s funding by increasing the number of individuals with access to mental health services and thus increasing the demand for the agency’s services. The MHPAEA has also had a positive impact by ensuring that insurance plans cover mental health services at the same level as physical health services, which has increased the agency’s funding from insurance reimbursements