November 1, 2012
The Community Care Collaborative (CCC) is Travis County’s new integrated delivery system – a multi-institutional, multi-provider system of healthcare envisioned to provide a coordinated continuum of services to low-income uninsured individuals.
Central Health has anticipated the CCC would grow to include a number of community partners, and today we announce Austin Travis County Integral Care (ATCIC) as the newest partner in the Collaborative. Austin Travis County Integral Care “provides community-based behavioral health and developmental disabilities services in Travis County, administering an annual budget of $57 million of local, state and federal funding at 44 physical facilities.” (www.integralcare.org)
Both organizations have engaged in discussions regarding CCC partnership for several months and in recent days these conversations culminated in ATCIC declaring interest and intent to participate in the collaborative. While Central Health and ATCIC finalize the details of participation, it’s clear that as a new partner ATCIC will bring an emphasis on the expansion and further integration of behavioral health services for our community, an area that continues to be a critical and longstanding need.
“ATCIC’s participation in the Community Care Collaborative is a logical extension of our work together over the years to expand access to behavioral health services. By virtue of their participation, we acknowledge the importance of integrating behavioral health services into the continuum of care. This new system is a cutting edge model that will better enable us to transform the healthcare delivery system in our community using the mechanism of the 1115 Waiver to full advantage for our improved collective health,” Central Health President & CEO Patricia A. Young Brown said.
ATCIC has offered additional intergovernmental transfer (IGT) capacity under the Section 1115 Medicaid Transformation Waiver, which serves to meet the funding resource requirement for partnership in the CCC. The added IGT capacity is currently estimated at $10-15 million dollars annually prior to “send up” for the federal match, which will then generate an additional $1.46 for every $1 of local funding. The actual governance and financial models for ATCIC’s partnership are under development at this time.
“Through previous collaborations with Central Health and Seton, we have made significant progress addressing critical gaps in access to behavioral healthcare in the community. By having the opportunity to play a governing role in the CCC, we can ensure behavioral healthcare is an important component within the integrated delivery system it will create,” ATCIC CEO David Evans said.
Central Health, Seton Healthcare Family and ATCIC will continue these discussions over the course of the next weeks to further define and finalize these relationships. The goal of including additional partners in the CCC is the further expansion of care for low-income uninsured individuals in Travis County. Behavioral health service expansions are prominently targeted as a result of this particular partnership.