Dear John,
I wanted to make sure you saw that HHSC released a draft 5-year Strategic Plan for addressing maternal depression, including postpartum depression.
We're glad to see that the draft Strategic Plan includes a number of the recommendations we submitted to HHSC based on the survey, community engagement, and other research efforts we conducted earlier this year. For example, the draft includes:
- Increasing awareness of maternal mental health challenges by training more professionals serving moms and families;
- Adding mental health counseling as a covered benefit in Healthy Texas Women’s postpartum package; and
- Leveraging formal and informal peer supports to help more moms, including certified mental health peer specialists, community health workers, promotoras, and group prenatal care like Centering Pregnancy.
As of now, the draft Strategic Plan does NOT include certain other important state strategies. For example, it unfortunately omits:
- Extending Medicaid coverage for mothers for a full year after childbirth rather than the current 60 days. In our survey, Texans said that the inability to afford services because of lack of insurance was the greatest challenge women face in receiving treatment or support for maternal mental health challenges — and respondents’ top recommendation for Texas is to extend Medicaid for a full year postpartum. Continuing moms' health coverage for a full year postpartum is also one of the policy recommendations of the state's Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee. Last year, the Texas House passed HB 744 to implement this recommendation, but it fell short in the Senate.
- Strategies to promote the use of tele-mental health in future years. Telehealth flexibilities have been invaluable during the coronavirus pandemic, and telehealth will continue to be critical for pregnant women and new mothers in the future, especially those without transportation or child care options.
You can read more in our blog post about the state's draft Strategic Plan as well as our research, survey findings, and policy recommendations regarding maternal mental health:
