March 24, 2023

Last week, HHS’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released its final revisions to the CCBHC certification criteria along with a detailed description of changes.

In addition to the summaries we sent you last week regarding changes to the criteria, the National Council has just released a summary of the major changes in the revised criteria (attached). We hope this is helpful as you review the criteria.  See attached document.

In addition, late yesterday SAMHSA released the Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for this year’s CCBHC-Expansion grants. These grants fall into two buckets: The CCBHC-IA opportunity is available to clinics that are state-certified as CCBHCs or have received a prior CCBHC grant, and the CCBHC-PDI opportunity is available to clinics that are implementing the CCBHC model for the first time.

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On February 23rd, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued proposed rules on post-COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) flexibilities surrounding the prescribing of controlled substances via telehealth. The proposed rules extend many of the flexibilities adopted during the public health emergency with appropriate safeguards. Emily Diehl, Manager, Federal Policy & Advocacy at the National Council reviewed the proposed rules on a webinar this week and the recording can be accessed HERE.

Reminder:  we sent all members boilerplate comments you can use to weigh in on the DEA proposed Rules yesterday.  Comments are due by 3/31.