In response to a recent 7 & 4 news story titled “Blocked grant funding dried up for certain incarcerated inpatient treatment“, the Northern Michigan Regional Entity (NMRE) is providing the 6-1-18 memo (linked below) that was addressed to Jails, District Courts and Probation Officers with whom the NMRE most frequently communicates. This memo does indicate that we have overspent our block grant funding, as we have in previous years but we are NOT discontinuing services or stopping the use of block grant funding. Rather, this memo describes our need to apply medical necessity guidelines to ensure that individuals accessing our most intensive and highest cost residential services are appropriate for the setting and their stage of recovery. These residential services are meant for individuals who are actively using, IV drug users, those being released from medical detox and pregnant women.
The memo also outlines that the NMRE will continue to look at options/alternatives that could include intensive outpatient or traditional outpatient services for individual upon early release from jail (Medicaid or Block Grant).
