Integral Care will receive up to $500,000 from Central Health, Travis County’s health care district, following an April 29 vote by the Central Health board of managers.
These funds are to be specifically targeted to provide care for confirmed COVID-19 patients or patients with presumptive cases that require emergency psychiatric services, according to Central Health documents.
“We would like to do our part to meet the community’s needs,” said Dakasha Leonard, the health care delivery operations manager for Central Health.
In a memo to Central Health, Integral Care wrote the continuing coronavirus pandemic may lead to more Travis County residents experiencing psychiatric crises that require immediate care.
“For our community, the question will be how to meet the needs of individuals experiencing a psychiatric crisis who are also symptomatic. ... Often, individuals in crisis end up in local emergency rooms before transitioning to inpatient psychiatric care, crisis residential or outpatient services. The existence of the pandemic may result in more people experiencing mental health crises and the added possibility of them being symptomatic with COVID-19 presents a unique challenge for the healthcare community,” Integral Care wrote.
Integral Care, the local mental health and intellectual and developmental disability authority for Travis County, added it has requested the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to provide extra funding to deal with patients experiencing psychiatric emergencies during the coronavirus outbreak.
The $500,000 in funding provided by Central Health is contingency based and may not be entirely used, Leonard said April 29.
