How States Leverage Federal Dollars to Expand Crisis Services—Part 1: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Funding

States, counties, and cities are making substantial investments to enhance crisis services. States have leveraged Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicaid dollars to advance crisis services along at least five avenues: CMS planning grants for crisis services, Medicaid state plan amendments, Children's Health Insurance Program state plan amendments, Medicaid Section 1115 demonstrations, and 1915(c) Medicaid home- and community-based services authorities. The authors recommend that local crisis care providers optimize Medicaid billing and that state mental health agencies work with state Medicaid agencies to ensure that crisis services billing opportunities are optimized in the state plan for Medicaid-billing organizations.