Parkersburg resident fights mental health care crisis

Just last month, Rusty Eddy and Kate Haberman, co-founders of Monarch Therapy Services in Parkersburg, were featured on The Steele Report to discuss what they see as a statewide mental health care crisis. That is a battle Eddy fights every day.

And it’s one that has received statewide attention of late as a dozen gubernatorial candidates discussed the mental health crisis at the Des Moines Register’s mental health forum earlier this month.

After Governor Branstad’s Medicaid Modernization initiative, privatizing Medicaid in 2015, three Managed Care Organizations were selected to manage claims in the state: Amerigroup Iowa, AmeriHealth Caritas Iowa and United Healthcare Plan of the River Valley.

As of November, AmeriHealth Caritas withdrew from the managed care program. Amerigroup Iowa is not accepting new members. “It’s not a mental health crisis. It’s a system crisis, an insurance crisis and a managed care crisis in the state of Iowa,” Eddy said.

Read the full story in the December 13 edition.