By JEANETTE WOLFBERG
HUDSON–The Columbia County Department of Human Services (DHS) received a go-ahead to continue its measures related to telepsychiatry and opioid abatement funds, from the county Board of Supervisors on February 14.
The “overwhelming majority” of DHS-provided mental health consultations are still “face to face,” DHS Director Dan Almasi said on February 20. But about a year ago, his department added consultations via video screen with Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners, through InnovaTel Telepsychiatry. The two nurses that InnovaTel provided DHS clients spoke from Texas and Mississippi.
This February 14, the county board authorized the DHS to renew its contract with InnovaTel for another year. Under the new contract, InnovaTel gets $145 to $155 per hour’s consultation with a nurse, $290 to $320 per hour with a psychiatrist. Mr. Almasi said that the clients’ insurance should pay most of these costs and that DHS expects to use InnovaTel for 32 hours a week.
The supervisors on February 14 also authorized the DHS to accept the $206,221 that the NY State Office of Addiction Services and Support (OASAS) has awarded it in Opioid Settlement Regional Abatement funding for 2024; as well as rolling over the not-yet-used $90,329 from the $284 thousand the DHS got for the same purpose in 2023 into the DHS’s 2024 opioid abatement budget.
In addition to the OASAS funds, Columbia County is slated to receive $2.2 million in opioid settlement funds as a result of signing on to three lawsuits by 2038. By November last year the county had received about $500,000 of it.
So far uses initiated or suggested for the OASAS and settlement funds include a Wellness Hub Coordinator, the Columbia Greene Addiction Coalition, a vehicle for ReEntry Columbia, prevention services, a clearing house for all services and their providers, and Oxford Houses for people who are coming out of addiction recovery, and flexible funds for unforeseen related situations.
