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Posted Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Jule Hubbard/Wilkes Journal-Patriot

The CEO of the primary behavioral health care provider in Wilkes and other area counties presented a report on the company’s work and discussed related matters during the Wilkes County commissioners meeting Monday night.

 

“The last time I was here there was a lot of uncertainty. Since then, I think everything has gone reasonably well,” said Daymark Recovery Services CEO Billy West in his second annual report to the Wilkes commissioners.

Daymark replaced New River Behavioral HealthCare in November 2011 due to New River’s financial collapse. West said then that the transition was like closing a hospital and reopening it two weeks later with only enough money to run an emergency room.

“I think you have done an excellent job and things have stabilized,” said Commissioner Gary D. Blevins. He then asked West, “What do you see for the future of mental health care in Wilkes?”

Questions from board

West said he liked what Gov. Pat McCrory said about fixing North Carolina’s broken information technology system, which West said is a major driver of problems in the state’s behavioral health system.

A lot more should be known about the new administration’s policies in the next six months, he added. “The verdict is still out on how he (McCrory) will handle (behavior health) reform.  Of course, he has a good road map of what not to do.”

West said he supports the state’s current Medicaid waiver program for managed behavioral health care. “I’d like to say North Carolina will stay the course (with the waiver program), but if you look at the history of North Carolina, you’ll see change” occurring often in behavioral health policies.

Commissioners also asked questions related to Wilkes County being identified as having by far the most methamphetamine (meth) lab busts among other counties in the state.
West said he hasn’t compared the meth problem in Wilkes to its severity in other counties but said, “It certainly is dangerous and is a serious problem.”

He said a problem of that magnitude normally would justify establishment of for-profit treatment services, but this isn’t the case with meth because it’s largely a problem among indigent people.
West said it’s hard to quantify the extent of meth usage alone from the standpoint of treatment services because most meth users also consume other controlled substances.

Service statistics

For all services, Daymark served 1,662 adults and 96 children for a total of 1,758 unduplicated patients in Wilkes in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012.

West said the 1,758 included 1,021 indigent patients (983 adults and 38 children), 332 Medicaid patients (332 adults and 38 children), 104 adults with Medicare, 144 adults with Medicare and Medicaid and 98 people with private insurance (88 adults and 10 children).

Daymark had 7,582 patient visits for what West called its three essential core services in Wilkes in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012. This number included seeing some patients multiple times.

The three core services and patient visits for each in this period included medical and psychiatric visits, 3,633; mobile crisis visits, 1,660; and emergency walk-in clinic visits, 2,289.

Daymark staff makes mobile crisis visits to homes and other locations in response to any behavioral health crisis. With the emergency walk-in service, he said, people with behavioral health crises can usually be seen without an appointment in an average of 30 minutes.

Daymark also has various outpatient mental health and substance abuse services for adults, children and families.

West said Daymark’s average cost of treating a patient is less than $900 per year, which he said is considerably less than the state average.

Patient satisfaction

He said Daymark’s patient satisfaction scores, based on patient questionnaires, indicate 90 percent patient satisfaction with services in all areas. West said Daymark scored over 96 percent in the area, “I was better able to control my life because of services.”

Salisbury-based Daymark has a staff of over 900 people (including 70 physicians) serving about 53,000 North Carolina citizens annually.

This includes a staff of 33 people in Wilkes, including 25 Wilkes residents, working in a facility at West Park in North Wilkesboro leased from Wilkes County government.

Daymark has a contract with Sylva-based Smoky Mountain Center to provide behavioral health care services in Wilkes and the other former New River counties of Ashe, Alleghany, Watauga and Avery.
Wilkes County government’s appropriation for behavioral health care in Wilkes that formerly went to New River now goes to Smoky Mountain and Smoky Mountain passes it on to Daymark.

This year’s appropriation of $254,200 included $134,726 budgeted for mobile crisis, $50,000 for emergency walk-in and $69,474 for medical/psychiatric services in Wilkes. Smoky Mountain is western North Carolina’s local management entity for behavioral health care.

This year’s appropriation of $254,200 was given to Daymark for providing medical/psychiatric, walk-in crisis and mobile crisis services.

Article Reference: Daymark CEO Gives Updae on Care