Launch of First and Only Online AOT Learning Modules and More!

AOT Learning Modules Released

This week, the Treatment Advocacy Center, in partnership with the American Psychiatric Association (APA), launched an eight-part series of online learning modules on assisted outpatient treatment (AOT). The modules are now available to the public through SMI Adviser, an open-access mental health resource library for providers and others seeking to help individuals with serious mental illness (SMI).

“People with SMI and their loved ones deserve compassionate and cost-effective pathways to recovery. These modules show how AOT programs, when implemented properly, can be a lifeline to those currently caught in the revolving doors of the mental health and criminal justice systems,” said John Snook, Executive Director of the Treatment Advocacy Center.

The learning modules are the first and only online resource for those seeking practical guidance on establishing and maintaining successful AOT programs in their own communities. They describe the essential elements of an AOT program, identify the building blocks of a sustainable program, and offer tips from longtime AOT practitioners on maximizing program outcomes. Addressing AOT implementation from a multidisciplinary perspective, the modules focus on the collaboration between judicial and treatment systems that defines the AOT model.

The modules are packaged into 2 courses available for CME credit:

AOT: Basic Concepts and Principles (Modules 1-3)
AOT: Implementation (Modules 4-8)

New APA President Calls for Elimination of IMD Exclusion and Details Benefits of Inpatient Treatment During COVID19

In a new From the President column, American Psychiatric Association (APA) President and TAC board member, Dr. Jeff Geller details the mental health issues that the APA should be prioritizing during the COVID19 pandemic. Alongside a host of other vital issues, Dr. Geller calls for the APA to support organizations pressing for changes in policy to end the Medicaid institutions for mental diseases (IMD) exclusion and to eliminate the 190-day lifetime limit for care in psychiatric facilities for Medicare beneficiaries, two longstanding TAC priorities.

Dr. Geller also takes an important stand in support of vital inpatient psychiatric facilites. He calls on the APA to vigorously oppose organizations using the current pandemic “as a subterfuge to advance a long-standing agenda of downsizing or closing public hospitals” and notes that for a national advocacy group to “point out only the downsides of patients staying in the hospital and be silent on both the benefits of hospitalization and the liabilities of being discharged is terribly irresponsible.”

Dr. McCance-Katz Reaffirms the Federal Government’s Support of TAC Priorities

In a new article published in the May edition of Psychiatric Services, HHS Assistant Secretary Dr. McCance-Katz highlighted numerous advances the federal government has made in prioritizing serious mental illness, including the advancement of a host of TAC priorities. After noting that “those living with serious mental illness are some of our most vulnerable citizens. Often their illness is so severe that they are unable to understand that they have a mental illness and, as a result, may not be able to care for themselves successfully in our communities,” Dr. McCance-Katz highlighted her work to support AOT through grants and through the new SMI Adviser program (highlighted above) and detailed the vital need to increase inpatient treatment beds.

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