Hampton business owner fights mental health care crisis

Just last month, Rusty Eddy and Kate Haberman, co-founders of Monarch Therapy Services in Hampton, Iowa Falls, Parkersburg, Waverly and Waterloo were featured on The Steele Report to discuss what they see as a statewide mental health care crisis. That is a battle they fight every day.
And it’s one that has received statewide attention of late as a dozen gubernatorial candidates discussed the men-tal health crisis at the Des Moines Register’s mental health forum earlier this month.
After Governor Branstad’s Medicaid Modernization initi-ative, privatizing Medicaid in 2015, three Managed Care Organizations were selected to manage claims in the state: Amerigroup Iowa, Ameri-Health Caritas Iowa and Unit-ed Healthcare Plan of the Riv-er Valley. As of November, AmeriHealth Caritas withdrew from the managed care pro-gram. Amerigroup Iowa is not accepting new members.
“It’s not a mental health crisis. It’s a system crisis, an insurance crisis and a man-aged care crisis in the state of Iowa,” Eddy said.
Read the full story in the December 27 edition.