Ensuring mental health crisis services are accessible and sustainable
In response to community feedback about fees charged for mobile health crisis service, the county provided the following updates. We will continue to provide updated information on this page as it becomes available.
County Board Chair provides statement addressing mental health service fees – posted Aug. 12, 2024
On Tuesday, August 6, Board Chair Reinhardt provided a statement addressing community concerns regarding the fees assessed for its mobile mental health services program. The statement committed to a review of the county’s current fee structure for these services, and thanked residents for their helpful feedback. It also acknowledged the incredible work of the Health & Wellness and Social Service team that provides these amazing crisis service.
The board meeting can be viewed online. The incoming chair remarks addressing this issue take place at approximately 6 minutes and 52 seconds into the broadcast.
County will conduct review of mental health crisis fee policy
– posted Aug. 1, 2024.
Ramsey County is committed to providing accessible mental health and crisis support to community. We recently worked with the news media on a data request regarding our mobile crisis support and how we billed for services and during that exchange, mistakenly provided incorrect data on numerous occasions causing confusion and mistrust. We believe it is critical to acknowledge and take responsibility for our mistakes. We also appreciate and take community input very seriously.
We appreciate the continued feedback we have received regarding our mental health services and current fee structure. Based on this feedback, we are reviewing our mental health crisis fees. Our objective is to gather comprehensive data, establish best practices and understand how other counties that offer similar services address this matter. The review will be provided to the board to determine next steps as any changes to the current fee structure require a board action.
The process of gathering and analyzing information will take some time and we acknowledge that waiting as we work through the review may be challenging. Please know we are as passionate and committed as you are about providing these services to community and ensuring they are accessible and sustainable to everyone who needs them.
.We are extremely grateful to everyone who has taken the time to share feedback with us. We all do better when we all do better; and we at Ramsey County are committed to doing better.
County responds to mental health crisis fee feedback – posted July 30, 2024
Ramsey County is committed to providing accessible mental health and crisis support to community. We believe in acknowledging our mistakes and take community feedback very seriously.
In May, we received a data request from Fox 9 regarding our mobile crisis support and how we billed for this service. As is common with medical care, there are fees when someone receives services at the Mental Health Center, at our walk-in Urgent Mental Health Care, or from the 24/7 mobile crisis team. These fees are billed to insurance providers whenever possible, otherwise a variety of options are offered to the patient including a sliding fee schedule or payment plan.
The reporter developed this story during a period of multiple transitions in the Health and Wellness Service Team and Social Services. Information we provided to the initial and subsequent questions had errors, which we acknowledged and apologized for with the reporter. Unfortunately, the acknowledgement was not received in the good faith it was provided, nor reflected in the news report.
Our errors included:
- We mistakenly told the reporter that the fees were a federal requirement. After confirming this error, we provided the reporter corrected information. The federal government allows the county to bill recipients of services but does not require it.
- We also mistakenly reported that the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), through its grant program, required us to bill for these services; there is no DHS requirement to bill for services. We clarified this misunderstanding with media as well.
- Additionally, the county’s online fee schedule we had at the time was provided to the reporter. Unfortunately, it did not include the fees for the mobile crisis response service, which the board approved in August 2023. The fee schedule has since been corrected. The updated fee schedule can be found at ramseycounty.us/your-government/budget-finance.
We would like to apologize directly to our constituents for initially providing the incorrect data and any confusion or harm it caused. We appreciate the feedback shared by community following the story. As a county, we are always working to meet the needs of the community by listening, learning, and improving our service.
As a direct result of feedback, we have taken a number of steps to address concerns raised including:
- Adding information to our website clarifying the fee and payment options for crisis services.
- Updating the script for all mental health crisis staff answering phones to share fee information with callers.
- Adding an insert to all invoices providing detailed information on the sliding scale fee and payment plan options to provide additional resources to residents who do not have insurance that will cover these services.
We believe it is critical that this life saving service is available to all residents regardless of income. We will continue to look at ways to improve our mental health and crisis response service.