Reports from Michelle Cornette and Co-Researchers Add New Data to Findings in Managed Care (Enhancing Medicaid Behavioral Health Crisis Reporting: A Multisource Approach to Capturing Crisis Service Events): Managed Care

2026 JUL 08 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Research findings on Managed Care are discussed in a new report. According to news reporting from Rockville, Maryland, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “The authors aimed to assess the adequacy of traditional billing codes for capturing behavioral health crisis events and to develop a comprehensive claims-based methodology for identifying such events among Medicaid beneficiaries. In this retrospective analysis of Medicaid claims data collected from 2016 to 2021, the authors conducted a five-step, multisource approach that incorporated traditional crisis service codes, behavioral health-related encounters in emergency department and urgent care settings, diagnosis codes indicating suicide attempts or intentional self-harm, naloxone administration, and emergency procedures associated with behavioral health diagnoses.”

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research, “Diagnosis, service, and place-of-service indicators were used to identify crisis service events beyond those captured by traditional billing codes. In 2021, traditional crisis billing codes identified 645,940 beneficiaries compared with >2.3 million identified with the expanded approach, capturing <28% of individuals experiencing a behavioral health crisis. From 2016 to 2021, the rate of individuals experiencing a crisis service event increased by 6.6% (from 31.8 to 33.9 per 1,000 beneficiaries), with the largest increases observed for naloxone administration (50.0%) and suicide attempt or self-harm events (14.8%). Compared with traditional codes, the expanded method identified a higher proportion of rural residents, older individuals, and individuals without a formal behavioral health diagnosis. Reliance on traditional crisis billing codes was found to significantly underestimate the true burden of behavioral health crises among Medicaid populations.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “A multisource approach incorporating diagnosis, service, and place-of-service indicators provides a more accurate and inclusive framework for crisis surveillance, with important implications for evaluating and strengthening behavioral health crisis systems.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Enhancing Medicaid Behavioral Health Crisis Reporting: A Multisource Approach to Capturing Crisis Service Events. Psychiatric Services, 2026. Psychiatric Services can be contacted at: Amer Psychiatric Publishing, Inc, 800 Maine Ave SW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20024, USA.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Michelle Cornette, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Rockville, MD. Additional authors for this research include Mustafa Karakus, Victoria Nelson, Peter Lee, Cristian Ilie, Howard H. Goldman, Laura House and Sushmita Shoma Ghose.

Publisher contact information for the journal Psychiatric Services is: Amer Psychiatric Publishing, Inc, 800 Maine Ave SW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20024, USA.

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