{"id":482669,"date":"2026-02-21T21:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/482669\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T21:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:45:08","slug":"a-third-patient-has-died-after-idaho-cut-a-medicaid-mental-health-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/482669\/","title":{"rendered":"A third patient has died after Idaho cut a Medicaid mental health service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun<\/a>) \u2014 A man in his 40s, who had severe mental illness and lived with his family in the Boise area, died recently after Idaho cut critical mental health services, according to a clinic owner who leads the local treatment team.<\/p>\n

Providers say it marks the third death among patients<\/a> who were receiving mobile, specialized treatment in less than three months since an Idaho Medicaid contractor cut the service<\/a>. In the year and a half before the cut, providers say only one patient on the program died.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Laura Scuri co-owns Access Behavioral Health Services in Boise and runs the region\u2019s team for the cut service, called Assertive Community Treatment, or ACT. She said an official cause of death for the patient hasn\u2019t yet been released. But she said she believed his death was preventable, saying the cut program was designed to help people address their basic needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not gonna stop,\u201d Scuri told the Idaho Capital Sun in an interview.<\/p>\n

Soon after the cuts were announced, providers and the Idaho Sheriffs\u2019 Association warned the cuts would risk public safety<\/a>, and providers said the cuts would drive up other costs even more. Eastern Idaho crisis centers are seeing demand spike after the cuts, which also ended peer support services<\/a> that help people navigate mental health treatment.<\/p>\n

In the next few months, Scuri fears the cuts could spur a violent critical incident as people with severe mental health issues lose accessible treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m worried it\u2019s gonna be a child. Some innocent kid that was in the wrong place at the wrong time is going to cross paths with someone who\u2019s actively psychotic and get hurt,\u201d Scuri said in an interview.<\/p>\n

State health officials have denied the entire ACT program was cut, saying services are still available. But some providers say the services that are still available aren\u2019t what the evidence-based program was like, because providers aren\u2019t paid to staff mobile treatment teams.<\/p>\n

Magellan, the contractor that runs Idaho Medicaid mental health benefits, and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare were not immediately available for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

About 200 people in Idaho are on the ACT program, Magellan Healthcare\u2019s Idaho Executive Director David Welsh wrote<\/a> in a December declaration in response to a federal lawsuit by patients.<\/p>\n

Asked about first two patient deaths, Gov. Brad Little said \u2018hindsight is a great thing\u2019 <\/p>\n

Magellan\u2019s pay rate was reduced by the Department of Health and Welfare as part of Medicaid provider pay cuts<\/a> last year, after Gov. Brad Little ordered<\/a> state budget cuts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked in a news conference on Tuesday whether the governor would\u2019ve handled his cuts differently after the first two patient deaths were reported, the governor said, \u201chindsight\u2019s a great thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little told reporters it\u2019s tough to anticipate the \u201cunintended consequences.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s budget chief, Lori Wolff, previously told the Sun that preventive services are often the first to go when the state faces a budget crunch \u2014 because they are one of few options the state has.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago, Idaho state Rep. Ben Fuhriman<\/a>, a Shelley Republican, said he planned to bring a bill to reinstate the program<\/a>, which he estimated would cost the state $4 million annually. But his bill hasn\u2019t been introduced yet. On Thursday, he said will be considered for introduction Monday in the House Health and Welfare Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re taking the next step to ensure this program is properly funded,\u201d Fuhriman said in a text message. \u201c\u2026 I\u2019m grateful to the chairman for giving it the opportunity to move forward so we can work toward getting it across the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n

< <\/p>\n

The latest death was preventable, like the first, Idaho health providers say <\/p>\n

The latest death was preventable, Scuri said in an interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The patient had been managing his chronic conditions, she said. But when the program was cut, she said providers couldn\u2019t know the issues would get worse or that he wouldn\u2019t keep addressing them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what ACT is designed to do,\u201d Scuri said, \u201cis to intercede when an individual becomes symptomatic and doesn\u2019t address their basic needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said patients whose mental illness worsen from lacking treatment often don\u2019t keep up on their basic needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The program is about more than just managing medication, she said; it is about building trust with patients to help them take care of themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have that, they won\u2019t,\u201d Scuri said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, she said some patients will become delusional about their illness, such as believing, \u201c\u2018The yellow pill is bad today. It\u2019s given to me by the government. The government is bad.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat happens a lot with our guys,\u201d Scuri said. \u201cAnd then they stop, and then they get sick, and then they go to the hospital. And we just do this over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

That cycle, she said, is part of why providers say the cuts drive up costs elsewhere. In December, the state\u2019s Medicaid director told lawmakers that health officials aren\u2019t sure the cuts will save the state money<\/a> long-term.<\/p>\n

The first two patient deaths were in eastern Idaho, providers say.<\/p>\n

In a federal court declaration, Ric Boyce, the owner of Chubbuck-based clinic Mental Health Specialists, wrote the first death was preventable. The patient died of complications following a minor surgical procedure \u2014 after declining follow-up medical care or sticking to a treatment plan, Boyce wrote.<\/p>\n

After the patient died in December, Boyce said in an interview that his clinic was investigated and asked why his staff didn\u2019t refer the patient to a higher level of care.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only higher level of care is hospital,\u201d he told the Sun. \u201cAnd you can\u2019t send somebody to the hospital and expect to have them hospitalized for a fairly minor medical issue. \u2026 They have to become a danger to (themselves) or others before they can be hospitalized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Idaho Capital Sun<\/a> is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t \t \t \t=htmlentities(get_the_title())?>%0D%0A%0D%0A=get_permalink()?>%0D%0A%0D%0A=htmlentities(‘For more stories like this one, be sure to visit https:\/\/www.eastidahonews.com\/ for all of the latest news, community events and more.’)?>&subject=Check%20out%20this%20story%20from%20EastIdahoNews” class=”fa-stack jDialog”> \t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) \u2014 A man in his 40s, who had severe mental illness and lived with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-482669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}