Rehabilitation services for persons with long term mental illness in the managed behavioral health care system: Stepchild again?

The growth of behavioral managed care systems in state after state has generated ongoing discussion about the framework for clinical services for people with serious mental illness, but almost no consideration has been given to the impact of behavioral managed care on the delivery of rehabilitation services for the same population. This paper raises a number of key issues with regard to the ways rehabilitation services will be developed, funded coordinated, and assessed in the years ahead and it suggests the importance of continued monitoring of contract language with regard to the rehabilitation involvement of behavioral managed care companies in the social residential, educational and vocational realms of community life.