Part of the Generations Education Series funded in part by the Archstone Foundation

Endorsed by ASA’s Mental Health and Aging Network (MHAN)

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Includes Complimentary CEUs.

This web seminar will review how the ACA and other recent changes to healthcare policy provide a historical opportunity to transform a fragmented and inadequate mental health and substance abuse healthcare delivery system. Such changes have significant implications for older adults, whose mental health needs have long been neglected. Expansion of insurance coverage, the establishment of essential benefits and experimental financial and organizational delivery models have the potential to dramatically improve access to vital mental health services for all Americans, in particular older adults. This web seminar also will explore where advocacy is needed to ensure we realize the promises of greater access and more complete integration.

Participants in this web seminar will be able to:

• List the mechanisms introduced in the ACA for expanding access to insurance coverage and mental health services for older adults;
• Distinguish between the major ACA initiatives to better integrate and coordinate care; and,
• Identify areas in which continued advocacy is needed to ensure equitable access to mental health services across the life span.

Presenters:

Robyn Golden, LCSW, serves as director of Health and Aging at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, where she also holds academic appointments in the departments of Preventive Medicine, Psychiatry, Health Systems Management and the College of Nursing.  She is a former chair of the American Society on Aging.

Matthew Vail, LSW, serves as the program coordinator for BRIGHTEN Heart, a randomized controlled trial comparing the BRIGHTEN Program (Bridging Resources of an Interdisciplinary Geriatric Health Team via Electronic Networking) to an educational program for African American and Latino older adults with depression and cardiometabolic syndrome. He also provides outpatient social work services in the Department of Health & Aging.