Archive

• Mental Health Evaluations Required Prior to Delinquency Dispositions

  This entry was contributed by Jacquelyn Greene on January 22, 2019 at 8:00 am and is filed under Juvenile Justice.

  Last week the Court of Appeals breathed new life into a decades-old law that requires district courts to refer juveniles who have been adjudicated delinquent, prior to disposition, to the area mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse services director for an interdisciplinary evaluation if any evidence that the juvenile is mentally ill has been presented. This new decision, In the Matter of E.M., __ N.C.App. __ (January 15, 2019), raises many questions like, does it really mean any evidence of mental illness? And does it matter if the juvenile has already received mental health services? And who is the area mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse services director anyways? Continue Reading

• LME/MCOs and MDEs

  This entry was contributed by Meredith Smith on December 2, 2015 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Guardianship.

  What is an LME/MCO?

   It often feels like the mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse (MH/DD/SA) fields and acronyms go hand in hand.  These acronyms can be confusing and intimidating to people who are not intimately familiar with this area of the law and practice.  This confusion is exacerbated by the fact that over the last few decades, there have been a number of changes to the delivery of public MH/DD/SA services in North Carolina.  One of the major changes was the creation of local management entities/managed care organizations (LME/MCOs).

  The purpose of the LME/MCO is to deliver MH/DD/SA services by using primarily state and federal resources appropriated to them by state government to authorize, pay for, manage, and monitor services provided by their network of private providers.  See Mark F. Botts, Mental Health Services, in County and Municipal Government in North Carolina Ch. 40, at 683 (Frayda S. Bluestein ed., 2014).   As of today, there are eight LME/MCOs under contract with the NC Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to provide public MH/DD/SA services in North Carolina.

  What is an MDE?

  LME/MCOs overlap with the world of incompetency and adult guardianship proceedings filed before the clerk of superior court when it comes to the preparation and assembly of multidisciplinary evaluations (MDEs).  An MDE is an important tool in an incompetency proceeding under G.S. Chapter 35A that is used to assist the court in determining: Continue Reading