Governor Hochul Announces Key Mental Health Investments for All New Yorkers as Part of FY 2025 Budget Agreement

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Governor Kathy Hochul today announced key mental health investments for New Yorkers as part of the FY 2025 Budget. Building on the investments from her $1 billion multi-year plan to strengthen the state’s continuum of mental health care, the FY 2025 Budget adds capacity system-wide, expands existing programs with a record of success, funds new evidence-based initiatives, and increases direct engagement at every stage of service.

"The mental health crisis is the defining challenge of our time, and I’m committed to expanding resources and support for New Yorkers who need a helping hand," Governor Hochul said. "Building on the success of last year’s transformative $1 billion investment, our budget this year will continue transforming the continuum of care so New Yorkers can get the care they need.”

Mental Health Support for New York’s Youth

Governor Kathy Hochul has made tackling the youth mental health crisis a priority within her overall mental health agenda. In February, the Governor announced her plan to drastically increase initial funding and make $20 million available for schools statewide to open individual mental health clinics satellites, making it easier for students and their families to access clinical services. To-date more than 1,100 school-based mental health clinic satellites are either operating or under development.

The FY 2025 Budget builds on this investment with more than $19 million to provide critical care to young people outside of school environments, including increasing resources for youth receiving treatment in their community or, when necessary, in residential care. Key initiatives like Youth Assertive Community Treatment teams, which provide wraparound services and support to young people at risk of entering residential or inpatient psychiatric treatment, will be expanded with $9.6 million to continue serving them at home and within their community whenever possible. An additional $4 million will support a loan forgiveness program specifically for licensed mental health clinicians serving children and families.

Support for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness

The FY 2025 Budget continues to invest in care for individuals with complex behavioral health challenges, including New Yorkers with serious mental illness. The budget allocates $55 million to add 200 new inpatient psychiatric beds at state-operated psychiatric facilities, including 15 beds serving children and adolescents, 85 civil beds for adults, and 25 forensic beds.

This funding will also establish three new 25-bed Transition-to-Home units at state-operated psychiatric centers to expand this successful program to populations in need of specialized care, including individuals with a history of recurring criminal justice involvement. These Transition-to-Home units provide an intensive focus on life management skills for individuals experiencing homelessness and mental health issues.

The Governor also recently proposed new regulations drafted to guide the discharge of individuals from inpatient and emergency psychiatric settings and hospital emergency room settings. The Budget allocates $7 million to the Office of Mental Health (OMH) to perform monitoring and compliance efforts.

Finally, the Budget includes $33 million to improve engagement with individuals living with mental illness and involved in the criminal justice system. This funding will improve outcomes by ensuring that individuals with a history of mental health treatment, lack of engagement in treatment, or other mental health concerns connect with necessary services and supports.

Increasing Insurance Rates for Mental Health Services

Governor Hochul remains committed to making record investments in mental health, including improving insurance coverage for mental health care. The FY 2025 Budget will require commercial insurance companies to pay for State-licensed outpatient mental health and substance use services at least at the Medicaid rate. Previously, many commercial insurance rates were inadequate to cover the costs incurred to deliver services to patients. The Budget also invests $84 million to increase Medicaid reimbursement for services provided at certain sites treating mental health conditions.

The Governor also recently proposed regulations to establish network adequacy standards for behavioral health services for commercial insurers. These regulations propose to establish appointment wait times for mental health and substance use disorder services, and when an in-network provider is not available within those standards, require insurers to allow access to an out-of-network provider at no additional cost. Similar behavioral health network adequacy standards were proposed for the Medicaid program.

Other initiatives included in the FY 2025 State Budget to assist New Yorkers across the state include $90 million in opioid settlement funding, where New York State will continue to lead the country in disbursing monies secured from settlement agreements with opioid manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies.

The FY 2025 Budget also allocates $2 million for suicide prevention efforts for first responders. This is in addition to the $1 million allocated annually for suicide prevention efforts for veterans, first responders, law enforcement, and correction officers.