A new report entitled Medicaid's IMD Exclusion: The Case for Repeal makes the case that the decades-old federal law that prohibits specialty psychiatric facilities from billing Medicaid served its purpose in contributing to what's popularly called "deinstitutionalization." But it has outlived its usefulness and now continues to discourage states from investing in inpatient care, despite a nationwide shortage of bed capacity.
The IMD Exclusion discriminates, through fiscal policy, against individuals with serious mental illness. Under the Biden Administration, repeal may present an opportunity for substantive bipartisan policy reform in mental health care. Read more