Crisis Resource Need Calculator

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Estimate your potential annual behavioral health acute inpatient and crisis care system cost

Understand your state or county’s specific behavioral health (BH) crisis care system needs and how the Crisis Now model could help more individuals receive care.

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    Estimate your potential annual cost for serving all individuals requiring in-person care

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    Estimate the potential capacity needed

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Why might states and counties benefit from a BH crisis care system?

Lack of adequate BH crisis care in many communities has a significant impact, including1:
  • The human cost of emotional pain of families struggling to access care
  • The opportunity cost of lost community contribution as mental illness represents our nation’s largest source of disability
  • The ever-escalating cost of inpatient healthcare for individuals who are unable to access needed community-based services in a timely manner

Understanding the costs of core services

The Crisis Resource Need Calculator (the Calculator) enables the user to understand the potential healthcare cost associated with delivering care for all individuals requiring in-person BH crisis care across a number of scenarios. For example, it can compare a scenario where a state or county relies solely on emergency department and inpatient resources to a scenario that deploys a continuum of crisis care services.
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What the Calculator is

The Calculator enables users to consider the potential healthcare costs of scenarios such as:

  • A. Using and expanding existing emergency departments and inpatient sites for communities without alternative resources

  • B. Adopting the Crisis Now model2 to provide a continuum of crisis care services (such as implementing mobile crisis teams and establishing receiving facilities)

  • C. Adopting a modified BH crisis care model (for example, adopting certain components of the Crisis Now model or changing utilization assumptions)

  • Based on national assumptions, the Calculator also estimates the capacity needed (including the number of inpatient beds) for each site of care.

  • The Calculator’s output provides directional estimates, not precise projections.

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What the Calculator is not

The Calculator is not designed for or intended to be used in any of the following ways:

  • Estimating a state or county’s current total cost of BH crisis care.

  • Estimating costs across the entire crisis care continuum For example, it does not account for the healthcare costs of BH crises resolved over the phone or outpatient follow-ups after a BH crisis.

  • Estimating staffing needs, ratios, or costs at different sites of care or for first responders, as standards may vary by state.

  • Specifying cost savings and returns on investment for states or counties.

  • Developing detailed budgets or budget requests.

  • Estimating one-time capital investment that states or counties might need to make.