The Full Form of CMH is Community Mental Health.

The Community Mental Health Board of Clinton-Eaton-Ingham Counties (CMHB) was formed in 1964, initially as a federally funded community mental health center, serving Lansing.

The organization moved towards its current legal structure, when the Community Mental Health Board of Clinton-Eaton-Ingham Counties was created, under the authority of Public Act 54 and the Urban Cooperation Act. PA 54 was superseded in 1974 when the Michigan legislature enacted Public Act 258, the new Michigan Mental Health Code. This state legislation transferred greater levels of responsibility for mental health services from state to local government. The Mental Health Code, the law which governs all state and local mental health programs in Michigan, was most recently revised in late 1995 (and is continually revised) and has moved even more responsibility from the state to the local level.

Starting in the 1970s, the major theme that drove Michigan’s CMH system was de-institutionalization – allowing persons who formerly lived in state hospitals and DD centers, to live in the community. This theme provided the impetus for the transfer of thousands of Michigan residents from treatment in state facilities to treatment in their home communities, by the CMH system.

During the 1970s, CMH also added substance abuse services to the range of services offered.

The CMHB became a managed care organization with full management in the early 1980s. As a part of full management, CMHs assumed a number of managed care functions, in addition to those associated with our role as provider. These functions include: making determinations about the package of services that a consumer receives, resolving complaints and disputes, contracting with and paying contractors, ensuring compliance with federal and state requirements, making decisions as to how use funds that are saved by serving persons in more cost effective ways, and measuring and ensuring the performance of the system in a wide range of areas.

In 1998, the CMHB took on the care management role for the mental health component of the Medicaid program in addition to its “safety net” role in serving non-Medicaid consumers. In this care manager role, as a Prepaid Inpatient Health Plan (PIHP), they could no longer bill Medicaid for services provided, rather they received a monthly pre-payment for each Medicaid recipient living in this community. Substance Abuse Services was the exception and bill fee-for-service.

In 2002, a number of smaller CMHSPs were required to either affiliate or merge with other CMHSPs to form PIHPs which covered at least 20,000 Medicaid enrollees. As a result of this mandate CMHB became and authority now called the Community Mental Health Authority of Clinton, Eaton, and Ingham Counties and formed the Community Mental Health Affiliation of Mid Michigan with Gratiot, Ionia, Manistee, Benzie and Newaygo County CMHs.