Community Mental Health Centers

Community Mental Health Centers

In 1963, the U.S. Congress passed the Community Mental Health Act, which established federal funding for community mental health centers throughout the nation. Part of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier, this legislation helped to move people out of state mental hospitals, a process known as deinstitutionalization.

In order to receive TennCare funding, community mental health centers must provide a certain core set of services:

• Outpatient services, including specialized outpatient services for children, the elderly, individuals who are chronically mentally ill, and residents of the Community Mental Health Center’s mental health service area who have been discharged from inpatient treatment at a mental health facility;
   
• 24-hour-a-day emergency care services;
   
• Day treatment, or other partial hospitalization services, or psychosocial rehabilitation services; and
   
• Screening for patients being considered for admission to state mental health facilities to determine the appropriateness of such admission.
   
• Each community mental health center in Tennessee may provide additional services or may contract with other agencies to provide some of the above-mentioned services.

Case management functions as the arms and legs of the community mental health center.