CareFirst Funds Community-Based Orgs to Boost Behavioral Healthcare Access

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield (CareFirst) is providing community-based organizations with nearly $8 million in grants to help improve behavioral healthcare access and quality for underserved youth.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the mental and behavioral health crisis among children, adolescents, and families. In response, CareFirst is investing in 19 community-based organizations in Maryland, Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia.

“CareFirst recognizes that behavioral health is an essential part of overall health, which includes a continuum of conditions ranging from severe mental health disorders to the emotional, psychological, and social factors that affect a person’s overall wellbeing,” Destiny-Simone Ramjohn, PhD, vice president of community health and social impact at CareFirst, said in the press release.

“We are proud to invest in 19 dynamic organizations who will minimize behavioral health disparities among young people and dramatically increase the number of trained health professionals that provide culturally responsive and trauma-informed behavioral health care.”

CareFirst selected grant recipients by conducting interviews with community-based organizations that focus on eliminating barriers to mental healthcare services and expanding the behavioral health workforce.

Specifically, the community-based organizations prioritize addressing behavioral health disparities for rural, low-income, youth of color, and LGBTQ youth. The funding will go to programs that address the root causes that lead to a higher prevalence of mental health and substance use disorder among these at-risk groups.

In addition, the payer is offering grants to programs that improve screenings and streamline the referral process for behavioral health services.

The grants will also go to community-based organizations supporting initiatives promoting the recruitment and retention of behavioral health providers from disadvantaged backgrounds and programs incentivizing providers to practice in geographical areas with limited mental healthcare access.

The payer prioritized community-based organizations that serve Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC); people experiencing homelessness; communities with limited English proficiency; structurally disinvested communities; and other marginalized populations.

According to the payer, the initiatives benefitting from the grants will impact 25,000 people.

“Complete health and wellbeing are human rights achieved through a 360-approach including physical, mental and emotional care,” Hosanna Asfaw-Means, director of community health and social impact at CareFirst, said. “These investments will ensure that our region is better equipped to provide a continuum of care for a wide number of populations experiencing behavioral health disparities.”

The following community-based organizations will receive grants from CareFirst:

• Association for the Public Defender of Maryland (Prince George’s County, MD)
• Centro Hispano de Frederick Inc. (Frederick County, MD)
• Chase Brexton Health Services (Baltimore City, MD)
• Identity Inc. (Montgomery County, MD)
• Pride Center of Maryland (Baltimore City, MD)
• Sasha Bruce Youthwork (Washington, D.C)
• Ignatius Loyola Academy (Baltimore City, MD)
• Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders (Washington, D.C.)
• Young Women’s Project (Washington, D.C.)
• Whitman-Walker Health (Washington, D.C)
• Arlington Free Clinic (Arlington, VA)
• Center for Urban Families (Baltimore City, MD)
• University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center (Charles County, MD)
• Enoch Pratt Library of Baltimore City in partnership with Maryland Peer Advisory Council and Healing City Baltimore (Baltimore City, MD)
• Luminis Health Inc. (Anne Arundel County, MD)
• Pathway Homes (Fairfax, VA)
• Pathways to Housing D.C. (Washington D.C.)
• West Cecil Health Center, Inc. (Cecil County, MD)
• Worcester Youth & Family Counseling Services (Worcester County, MD)

The funding supports CareFirst’s priority of advancing behavioral health equity, which is one of the four focus areas of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s national health equity strategy. The strategy, announced in April 2021, centers around improving racial disparities in behavioral health, maternal health, diabetes, and cardiovascular conditions.

Improving access to mental and behavioral health services has been a top priority for payers in 2022. According to a survey conducted by AHIP, all health plan respondents offered virtual behavioral healthcare services, and 89 percent were actively recruiting mental healthcare providers.

Additionally, 78 percent of health plans reported increasing reimbursement rates for behavioral healthcare workers.