Access to Behavioral Health

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and Office of Minority Health plan to award $35 million through seven grant programs to support mental health and suicide prevention for children and young adults, including $9.2 million from the…
Questions remain about who the primary telehealth users are, where utilization is concentrated, how patients prefer to access care and how physicians feel about delivering care in this manner. Two recent reports looked at these issues and came to a similar finding: Absent significant change,…
During his State of the Union address last night, President Biden announced a national strategy to strengthen the mental health care system.
Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, introduced the Senate companion to the Post-Disaster Mental Health Response Act (S. 3677), AHA-supported legislation that would expand the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program to federally-…
Letter to Senators Durbin and Portman expresses AHA’s support for the Post-Disaster Mental Health Response Act.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many new challenges to America’s health care system. It also has exacerbated existing issues that were already in need of attention before the pandemic. 
The Senate passed and sent to the president the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act (H.R. 1667), AHA-supported legislation that would authorize grants for programs that offer behavioral health services for front-line health care workers.
Statement of the American Hospital Association to the Committee on Finance of the United States Senate “Protecting Youth Mental Health: Part II - Identifying and Addressing Barriers to Care” February 15, 2022
In a statement submitted to the Senate Finance Committee for a hearing on protecting children’s mental health, the AHA urged Congress to lift the caps on physician residency positions and increase scholarships, loan forgiveness and other financial supports to encourage health care providers to…