​2016 DOJ Findings Letter to Louisiana Re: Use of Nursing Homes for People with Mental Health Disabilities

           Well, surprise surprise -- nursing homes really aren't the most integrated setting under the Americans with Disabilities Act for most people with Mental Health Disabilities.
                   Here, Louisiana had 4,000 people with mental health disabilities in nursing homes.  In the first quarter of 2017, Colorado had over 2,200, according to the CMS website.
https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Computer-Data-and-Systems/Minimum-Data-Set-3-0-Public-Reports/Minimum-Data-Set-3-0-Frequency-Report.html#
                     From our perspective Colorado has really tried to address this issue, but it has really stalled out because of it's discriminatory Medicaid mental health benefit that does NOT prioritize the most intensive community mental health treatments such as assertive community treatment (the supposed gold standard) nor make it available to all where reasonably medically necessary.