The Colorado Department of Human Services, Behavioral Health Administration (BHA) is preparing to analyze information from safety net behavioral health provider organizations about their operational costs and funding needs to provide services and close gaps in the continuum of care. A request for information (RFI IBEH 2025000037) issued on January 31, 2025, requested cost data from provider organizations operating as Comprehensive Behavioral Health Providers (Comprehensive) and from those operating as Essential Safety Net Providers (Essential). The analysis will inform a new behavioral health safety net model in which behavioral health administrative organizations (BHASOs) will oversee and coordinate both Medicaid-funded and non-Medicaid-funded behavioral health services. Responses to the RFI were requested by February 21, 2025. The new model goes live on July 1, 2025.

Previously BHA purchased mental health services directly from Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs) that provided a range of services to prevent and treat behavioral health disorders, including inpatient services, outpatient services, partial hospitalization, emergency services, and consultation and educational services. The BHASOs will establish and manage regional networks of safety net behavioral health provider organizations certified by the BHA as Comprehensive or Essential provider organizations.

Additional information about the two types of safety net organizations:

• Comprehensive behavioral health provider organizations (Comprehensive Providers) are licensed behavioral health entities, or entities approved by BHA to provide care coordination and a set of behavioral health safety net services either directly or through formal agreements. The set of services includes: emergency and crisis behavioral health services; outpatient services, high-intensity behavioral health services; care management; outreach, education, and engagement services; recovery supports, outpatient competency restoration; and screening, assessment, and diagnosis, including risk assessment and crisis planning to monitor key health indicators.
• Essential behavioral health safety net provider organizations (Essential Providers) are licensed behavioral health entities or behavioral health providers approved by BHA to provide care coordination and at least one of eight specific services, or additional services that BHA determines are needed in a region or throughout the state. The specific services include emergency and crisis behavioral health services, behavioral health outpatient services, behavioral health high-intensity outpatient services, behavioral health residential services, withdrawal management services, behavioral health inpatient services, integrated care services, and hospital alternatives.

BHA has reserved $52 million in mental health safety net funding for the BHASOs’ first year, according to the RFI. BHA and the BHASOs will determine mental health safety net funding allocations at the regional and provider levels. The allocation data points include population and demographic data for each region, workforce supply and community demand, geographic regions that will be served by Comprehensive and Essential providers, alignment with current mental health needs assessment data, and responses to this RFI.

In the RFI, BHA noted that through the BHASOs it will allocate mental health safety net funding to safety net Comprehensive or Essential provider organizations via four funding streams, as follows:

1. Mental Health Treatment And Services Funding will be used to reimburse via a fee schedule consistent with rates in the Essential provider fee schedule. Some legacy programs formerly provided by CMHCs will be contracted for separately, not through the BHA mental health safety net funding: outpatient competency restoration, first episode psychosis services, Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Extended Services, school-based mental health specialist services, Colorado Crisis Services previously contracted through an administrative services organization and any addiction disorder services.
2. Critical Access Funding will provide cost-reimbursement and/or capacity funding that supports critical mental health safety net services where the costs of these programs exceed the revenue from other sources, such as Medicaid or commercial insurance. Qualifying services include programs providing services to adults with serious mental illness and children with serious emotional disturbance that lack sufficient volume to sustain financial viability; assertive community treatment (ACT); and individual placement and support (IPS).
3. Service Capacity Expansion Funding is cost-reimbursement and/or capacity funding that supports activities to expand service capacity, test clinical innovations, or workforce investments. Qualifying services include implementing new programs, such as ACT or IPS, where reimbursements from other sources have not matured; or testing new more efficient care models that require upfront infrastructure investment such as measurement-based care.
4. Behavioral Health Safety Net Sustainability Funding provides grant funding for Comprehensive providers, possibly monthly to meet additional expenses of operating as a Comprehensive provider. This funding will be allocated with what remains after the other three funding streams are allocated.

On October 2, 2024, BHA announced plans to award BHASO contracts to Rocky Mountain Health Plans for Region 1 on the western side of the state and Signal Behavioral Health Network for Regions 2, 3, and 4 on the state’s eastern side. Both are based in Colorado and are well established. Rocky Mountain Health Plans was founded in 1974. Signal Behavioral Health Network was founded in 1996. The contracts have an initial six-month start-up period from January 1, 2025, through June 30, 2025. The go-live date is July 1, 2025. The contracts will have five one-year renewal options.

For more information about the program, contact: Stefany Busch, Media Manager, Behavioral Health Administration, Colorado Department of Human Services, 3824 West Princeton Circle, Denver, Colorado 80236; 303-905-3542; Email: stefany.busch@state.co.us; Website: https://bha.colorado.gov/

For more information about the RFP, contact: Jiamir Mirabal, Procurement, Colorado Department of Human Services, 1575 Sherman Street, Denver, Colorado 80203; Email: jiamir.mirabal@state.co.us; Website: https://bha.colorado.gov/