State of Michigan group to carve in behavioral health and substance use disorder services

As communicated in a web-DENIS message posted July 1, New Directions Behavioral Health will manage behavioral health and substance use disorder benefits on behalf of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for State of Michigan enrollees (group number 007000562), effective Oct. 1, 2019.

Their services were previously managed by Magellan Health. This change affects services provided on or after Oct. 1, 2019.

New Directions will be responsible for prior authorizations, as well as approvals and denials of all behavioral health and substance use disorder admissions, including outpatient services for applied behavioral analysis, or ABA, and intensive outpatient, or IOP, services. New Directions will also provide case management services. In addition, enrollees will be able to access Blue Cross Online Visits^SM, beginning Oct. 1, 2019.

Claims for behavioral health and substance use disorder services provided on or after Oct. 1, 2019, should be submitted to Blue Cross. Prior authorization requests for services provided on or after Oct. 1, 2019, should be submitted to New Directions.

Both Blue Cross and New Directions will provide customer service support and answer questions related to behavioral health and substance use disorder services. Blue Cross will respond to benefit or claims inquiries.

We’ll issue State of Michigan enrollees new ID cards throughout September.

State of Michigan enrollees will have access to Blue Cross’ broad PPO network, and services will be provided using the associated reimbursement fee schedule.

We’ll have more details in a future Record article.