Moving Back Into the Community: Experiences of a Pilot Program in Relocating Nursing Facility Residents with Behavioral Health Disorders Into the Community

Purpose: Money Follows the Person (MFP) is a federally-funded national demonstration program that helps Medicaid enrollees transition from institutionalto community-based care. In 2008, Texas initiated a Behavioral Health Pilot (BHP) project to investigate whether individuals eligible for MFP who had mental health and/or substance abuse problems could successfully live in the community if offered appropriate targeted supports. Questions addressed in this presentation are: How many BHP participants stay in the community? Are participants satisfied with BHP services? What individual or situational characteristics predict program success? Do participants show improvement on quantitative measures of functioning during their year in the program?