07/15/2022
988 set for quiet launch in light of state, federal concerns about crisis call spike. States say they are ready for the launch but long-term funding remains an open question.
By MEGAN MESSERLY and SARAH OWERMOHLE
State health officials, unsure they have the money or staff to respond to an expected flood of calls to 988 — the new mental health hotline number — are tempering expectations just days ahead of its launch.
It’s a setback for the Biden administration, which had hoped the opening of the three-digit crisis line, billed as 911 for mental health care, would come with much fanfare. Instead senior officials find themselves downplaying Saturday’s launch as more of a “transition.”
“911, when it was implemented, was an evolution,” said Christina Mullins, commissioner for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources Bureau for Behavioral Health. “We’re going to be in that similar evolution.”
Federal officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, worry that most states are ill-prepared to meet the hotline’s long-term needs, a failing that could hamper states’ ability to quickly answer crisis calls with operators familiar with local resources. While the health agency in recent months has dispatched new funds to help states expand their crisis networks, federal officials say few states have kept their end of the bargain and implemented long-term funding.
The concerns come at a time when the Biden administration, Congress and public health experts say mental health challenges are too often unaddressed, and at least partly responsible for increases in drug overdose deaths, pre-teen suicides and gun violence among other maladies.
Becerra earlier this month lamented that most states — more than half of which were still sending a significant chunk of their crisis calls to an out-of-state backup call center as of May — still have not secured the needed funding and workforce for an expected surge in calls, due to increased media attention, once 988 goes live.
“988 isn’t just a number, it’s a message,” Becerra said during a conversation with reporters this month. “It’s the signal to America that we want to consolidate that service, we want to strengthen that service and we want to make it consistent. We won’t have the luxury of decades like 911 had to get on the ground and running.”
