Dayton center awarded mental health grant

Aug. 01--Community Health Centers of Greater Dayton is among eight health centers in Ohio that will receive at total of $2 million in Affordable Care Act funding to establish or expand behavioral health services.

Community Health was awarded a two-year grant for $250,000, which Executive Director Gregg Hopkins said would be used to hire a full-time behavioral health professional to help screen patients.

"It's going to be more ingrained in our system to screen almost all of our patients for depression and other mental health issues that are more prevalent than we think," Hopkins said. "In the past, we would refer those individuals that we felt like needed help to other agencies. But the model we're going to employ now will make it easy for us to do something about it here."

Other health centers receiving funding in southern Ohio include the Cincinnati Health Network, Columbus Neighborhood Health Center and Southeast Community Mental Health Center, also in Columbus.

"These awards will further reduce the barriers that too often prevent Ohioans from getting the help they need for mental health problems," said U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell. "Health centers in Ohio with these awards are on the front lines of better integrating mental health into primary care and improving access to care through the Affordable Care Act."

The 2010 health care reform law expanded mental health and substance use disorder benefits for approximately 60 million Americans, including more than 2 million in Ohio, according to HHS. Last year, health centers saw over 1.2 million behavioral health patients.

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