Webinar: Recommendations for a Standardized State Methodology to Measure Clinical Behavioral Health Spending

State officials are increasingly interested in identifying ways to improve access to high-quality behavioral health care and promote appropriate levels of spending to support these services. States that measure the portion of health care spending going to behavioral health can use this information to improve access, measure compliance, and set a target for spending.

On October 2, 2024, the Milbank Memorial Fund and Freedman HealthCare held a webinar on a new standardized methodology and code set to measure how much payers spend on behavioral health clinical services. Freedman HealthCare’s Vinayak Sinha and Mary Jo Condon presented the methodology, and several state officials shared their experiences with behavioral health spending measurement.

State panelists included:

• Margareta Brandt, Assistant Deputy Director, Health System Performance, California Office of Health Care Affordability
• Cory King, Health Insurance Commissioner, Rhode Island Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner
• Lauren Peters, Executive Director, Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis
• Yi-Shan Sung, Research Analyst, Oregon Health Authority