S257 - Appropriations Act of 2017. (SL 2017-57)

Overview: Sec. 11F.5 of S.L. 2017-57 directs the Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to utilize certain funds appropriated from the Dorothea Dix Hospital Property Fund to pay for renovation or building costs for constructing new licensed inpatient behavioral health beds or for converting existing inpatient acute care beds into licensed inpatient behavioral health beds. Certain portions of these funds must be used for beds at Caldwell/University of North Carolina Health Care in Caldwell County, Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Cumberland County, Mission Health System in Buncombe County, Good Hope Hospital in Harnett County, and the Dix Crisis Intervention Center in Onslow County.

Facilities that receive this funding are exempt from certificate of need review for establishing or expanding behavioral health services, including outpatient therapy services and substance use disorder services, as well as for replacing or relocating a behavioral health facility or for changing inpatient bed capacity.

Facilities receiving this funding also must reserve fifty percent (50%) of the beds constructed or converted with these funds either for purchase by DHHS or for certain patients referred by local management entity/managed care organizations (LME/MCOs).

DHHS must report to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Health and Human Services annually beginning November 1, 2018, on the additional beds created by this funding and must submit by December 1, 2020, a plan for funding the operating costs of these beds from a source other than the Dorothea Dix Hospital Property Fund.

This section also provides funding to the Division to be used to award competitive grants for establishing up to two new facility-based crisis centers for children and adolescents.

This section became effective July 1, 2017.