$39B in Savings Could Follow National Implementation of New Mental Health Support Line

The American health care system could save $39 billion a year through the new federal behavioral health crisis hotline and enhanced behavioral crisis response resources, a projection from the McKinsey Health Institute found.

The new crisis line — 988 — will take the place of the ten-digit National Suicide

Prevention Lifeline in July. Stakeholders say that this will require an extensive set of national, regional and local investments to give people support in a time of crisis.

But the payoff could be big in terms of lives and dollars.

This is according to Kana Enomoto, global director of brain health with the McKinsey Health Institute and a senior expert with McKinsey & Co.’s health care practice.

“There will come a day when everyone — regardless of where they live or who they are — will have somebody call, chat or text; [have] someone to respond; and a safe place to go,” Enomoto said.

She made these remarks during a general session of the NatCon22, the national convention of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.

The Federal Communications Commission in late 2019 voted to go with the 988 number, moving away from the previous hotline, 1-800-273-8255. Going with three easy-to-remember digits is a step towards aligning systems for behavioral health crisis response with those for other emergencies, such as the 911 number.

The new number also has the potential to alleviate the pressure on first response systems. Enomoto estimates that 988 within five years will result in as many as 8,500 life-saving interventions, address 6.5 million crisis episodes and field 2 million calls, answered by trained behavioral health crisis responders.

The proposed 2023 federal budget contains nearly $700 million for the 988 rollout and for crisis centers nationwide. The program is part of President Joe Biden’s “Unity Agenda,” which he presented in March at his State of the Union address.

All told, the proposed budget from the White House includes about $4.8 billion to “transform mental health and substance use disorder coverage and infrastructure.”.

The push to simplify and improve crisis response for behavioral health issues has been a long time coming and has a way yet to go.

Enomoto pointed to the 988 hotline and expanded crisis response as a behavioral health trend she “was most excited about,” when asked by National Council for Mental Wellbeing CEO Chuck Ingoglia.

“I love this question because there [are] different types of excitement: There’s the kind of excitement when you’re going to have a birthday party and there’s the kind of excitement from when you’re going take your driver’s test,” Enomoto said. “I’m excited to see how it galvanized us and what’s brought us together. I’m also nervous about the amount of work we face to make [it] happen.”