Evaluation of the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic Demonstration

Community behavioral health organizations that became CCBHCs provide a comprehensive range of ambulatory mental health and substance use services, as well as primary care screening and monitoring. Medicaid pays a fixed daily or monthly payment to each CCBHC, and states have the option to provide CCBHCs with bonus payment tied to performance on quality measures. The demonstration seeks to test whether providing an enhanced payment rate to CCBHCs that provide a broad array of services improves access to, and the quality and outcomes of care. Mathematica and the RAND Corporation are conducting a mixed-methods evaluation to examine the implementation and outcomes of the demonstration across states. The evaluation includes analysis of Medicaid claims data, CCBHC quality measure and cost reports, surveys of CCBHCs, CCBHC client focus groups, and interviews with state- and CCBHC-level stakeholders.