AHA, Others Voice Strong Support for Limited Repeal of IMD Exclusion

The AHA and seven other national hospital organizations yesterday voiced strong support for legislation that would allow states to receive federal matching funds for services provided to a Medicaid beneficiary with a substance use disorder in an Institution for Mental Disease. “Since 1965, the Institutions for Mental Diseases exclusion has prohibited federal payments to states for services for adult Medicaid beneficiaries between the ages of 21 and 64 who are treated in facilities that have more than 16 beds, and that provide inpatient or residential behavioral health – SUD and mental illness – treatment,” the organizations said in a letter to leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which will mark up additional opioid legislation tomorrow. “The discriminatory IMD policy was established at a time when SUDs were not considered medical conditions on the same level as physical health conditions. Today, we know that SUD is a brain disease and that successful treatment requires access to the full continuum of care – namely, inpatient care, partial hospitalization, residential treatment and outpatient services.”