Clay County Commission

Dan Haglund 

In tandem with the proclamation of May being named Mental Health Month, the Adult Mental Health Local Advisory Council delivered its annual report to the Clay County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday in Moorhead. 

The report included a short laundry list of requests for the upcoming year in the areas of transportation, housing and streamlining services. 

Ann Burrell and Allison Wolbeck, co-chairs of the Adult LAC first thanked the commission for its ongoing help and support of their missions, and then detailed five areas on which to concentrate in the next year. 

“As we move out of the public health state of emergency, mental health is even now more important than ever before,” said Wolbeck. “We must focus our attention on creating policies, systems and environments that will promote mental health and well-being for all residents.” 

Wolbeck first presented her assessment of Clay crisis services. She notes that the nearest crisis service centers are in Detroit Lakes and Fergus Falls, Minn., both about 45 minutes away from Moorhead. 

“Transportation, often by ambulance or by care workers, can be both costly and time consuming,” Wolbeck said. 

She said the Moorhead facility can handle some individuals, but the struggle continues to hire appropriate staff to handle to complex issues some cases require.

“Our recommendation is to build a crisis stabilization unit in the county,” Wolbeck said. “This will reduce the high cost of traveling out of the county. It would also encourage individuals to seek that lower cost service rather than going across the river to an in-patient unit.” 

Wolbeck also said that some individuals who do not have family or friends to drive them must rely on expensive ambulance services for non-emergency medical transportation. Cab fares to and from appointments can also be too cost-prohibitive for some, she said. The department would like through the creation of the RFP build a protective transportation service, which Wolbeck says would be billable to medical assistance (MA). 

Second, for continued in-patient medical hospitalizations, Wolbeck says the county must pay 100 percent of individuals’ bills after they no longer qualify for hospitalizations. Costs can be as much as $1,700 per day per individual for the county from the general fund, she said. 

“Recently, placements cost the county more than $80,000 because another placement could not be found quickly,” Wolbeck said. “Our recommendation is to advocate for the state to dedicate all of the funds paid by counties for clients that do not meet medical criteria, to build out the current medical health system, particularly in greater Minnesota instead of putting them in the general fund.” 

The third area of need in Adult LAC has to do with housing. 

The co-chairs ask that the board team up with other state county commissioners to push for “policy changes that could reduce the occurrence of redundant, background and credit checks.” 

Burrell added that many of the individuals are having stressful disputes with landlords, and inattention to repairs and renters’ needs. 

As for mental health workforce shortages, the co-chairs request that the board advocate that the state recognize professional licenses for providers, Wolbeck said, from other compact states to allow border communities to hire these critical roles to ease the burden on the Department of Human Services (DHS) for easing license transfers. Wolbeck also mentioned wage increases for care professionals as an incentive. 

“I have been working with a good friend of mine trying to get services for mental health and substance use disorder,” Wolbeck said. “It has been exceedingly frustrating. He goes to one place to get medication for mental health, and then another place for substance use disorder. When we all know these things do not occur separately, they occur together.” 

Wolbeck said such scenarios of dual diagnoses are quite common. Some individuals, she says, are being assessed far too much, which costs a great deal, whether by the county or by judicial requirement. 

Commissioner Kevin Campbell, Dist. 4, asked, “If a judge determines that an assessment needs to be done, I’m just wondering how we get involved with that?” 

Wolbeck said the main issue is not judicial requests, but when a patient goes to seek treatment, the treatment facility will redundantly reassess them. 

The last recommendation is to “reduce waste and public programs through technology,” Wolbeck said. 

Wolbeck says there is an overabundance of paperwork and physical paper being wasted through mailings and other sources. 

“I would like for the county to implement whatever applications are sent out, but then also advocate to allow participants to opt in to electronic updates and allow for applications and re-certifications to be done electronically.”