Georgia’s 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline has experienced sharp performance declines, raising concerns about access to critical mental health care. The national 988 line was created to provide crisis support, and when launched in 2022, it aimed to help avert mental health crises and reduce suicide risk. However, Georgia has struggled to keep its rates of disconnected or rerouted calls low.
Kaitlin Cooke of Cartersville, Georgia, called the statewide mental health crisis line starting in 2018 when she was contemplating suicide. Each time she called, counselors spoke to her for at least 45 minutes and told her that life “does get better.” She credits the resource with saving her life: “If it weren’t for this resource, I might have been a statistic.”
Starting in March, the call response record for the Georgia Crisis and Access Line plummeted. Georgia has contracted with Carelon Behavioral Health, a unit of insurance giant Elevance Health, to run its crisis lines. When Carelon dropped a subcontractor that managed staffing, performance plunged. The state requires a call abandonment rate of 3% or less, but the rate reached 18%. After sending a letter to Carelon, the state narrowed its definition of abandoned calls, lowering the current rate. Before March, more than 80% of crisis calls were answered within the state. The number dropped to 73% in March, then to 62% in April. The rate rose to 72% in October and reached 79% in December.
Local counselors should be more familiar with the state infrastructure and available mental health resources. Out-of-state counselors may not know much about that state’s mental health system and providers. The service also sends many predominantly Spanish-speaking callers to out-of-state call centers, possibly hindering their connection to local help. With the help of federal funding, Georgia is paying Carelon 17 million dollars annually to manage 988 and the Georgia Crisis and Access Line.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/georgia-988-suicide-crisis-lifeline-hotline-response-rates-hang-up-mental-health/