This story has been updated.

Some of the programs that help Connecticut children in mental health crises are in jeopardy due to a lack of funding and problems accessing Medicaid funds, service providers say.

Urgent crisis centers, which are operated by private agencies and funded by the state, aim to quickly treat children who are often at risk of hurting themselves or others. But they are struggling to access much of their funding because the majority is allocated in the state budget through Medicaid. Yet only about half of the patients have Medicaid.

The emergency mobile crisis intervention services, also referred to by providers as mobile crisis centers, which bring similar services to kids’ homes, didn’t get any funding in the first fiscal year of the recently passed biennial budget.

State officials plan to hold meetings with mental health service providers in the coming days to find solutions to the funding issues. They hope to use unspent money, such as American Rescue Plan Act dollars, to keep the mobile crisis centers afloat for the year, but it’s less clear what the solution is for the urgent crisis centers.

“We’re kind of at a loss, and we do think that Medicaid and [Department of Social Services] commissioners definitely expressed support for trying to … iron out some things. But it’s unclear how long that will take,” said Gary Steck, chief executive officer at Wellmore Behavioral Health in Waterbury. The nonprofit operates one of the state’s four urgent crisis centers and a mobile crisis program.

The urgent crisis centers received about $3 million in grant funding over the two fiscal years, and just under $8 million annually under Medicaid. But about half of the clients the centers see aren’t covered under Medicaid, meaning the centers can’t access much of that money. Many privately insured patients have high-deductible health care plans and can’t pay fees.

The mobile crisis program got about $8.6 million in fiscal year 2027, but nothing in fiscal year 2026, which began July 1.

On Friday, Senate Republicans sent a letter to DSS Commissioner Andrea Barton-Reeves, asking her to provide an update because “the state’s urgent crisis centers are concerned about future funding now that money provided through the American Rescue Plan Act is starting to run out.”

The questions about funding come as providers say more children continue to struggle with severe mental health problems. Last summer, youth suicides spiked. Providers believe that the crisis care programs are among the best ways to help suicidal kids.

The urgent crisis centers were established through 2022 legislation and opened in 2023. They aimed to prevent children with mental health needs from having to go to the emergency room. Since they opened, they’ve served thousands of children and more than 95% have been able to go home safely after their visit.

Steck called the program “a miracle.”

“Since their inception, the [urgent crisis centers], in a little over two years, have served over 2,000 families. And of those, 97% of those families were able to go home safely and did not need to go into the emergency room,” said Hector Glynn, chief executive officer at the Village for Families & Children, which runs the Hartford-based crisis center. “That is a phenomenal success rate. It’s a success rate we don’t see in most other services that we provide.”

About half of the children who visit the centers have Medicaid insurance, which typically has higher reimbursement rates than private insurance for mental health care. Many of the privately insured families also have high deductible plans, and when they can’t pay, the nonprofits write off the debt.

“The last thing we want to do is have finances become such a barrier to care that families wind up saying, ‘You know what, we’re just going to try to limp along and hope for the best or wait and ultimately go to the emergency department, because we’re not sure how we would ever manage to pay this bill,’” said Lisa Otto, chief executive officer of the Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut.

Otto said her nonprofit has funds to run their urgent crisis center in New London until February before they run into issues. Because the model is unique for Connecticut because it’s emergency care focused on behavioral health, there isn’t a blueprint for billing, she said.

Steck said his center in Waterbury will have acute funding needs in the fall. They have run out of money more quickly because they have operated with longer hours than the other centers.

In addition to the issues with fewer clients having Medicaid, it’s hard to find billing codes that work for both the state government and the federal government.

The Department of Social Services plans to meet with providers later this month to talk about solutions, said Medicaid director William Halsey. There may be options to “bundle” billing to make it easier for providers to get paid for more services.

That means they’d be able to bill for a slew of services typically provided during urgent crisis visits rather than billing for individual services, Halsey said.

Children’s Committee co-chair Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Wilton, said lawmakers are also looking into policy changes that might help ease the financial burden. She hopes they can address it in a special session this fall, she said.

“We’re also talking with insurance and looking at how the insurance can be covered that might require re-coding,” said Maher, who is also a member of the Transforming Children’s Behavioral Health Policy and Planning Committee. “It’s an ongoing conversation, so we’re very aware of making sure that they are funded.”

Children’s Committee and ranking member Rep. Anne Dauphinais, R-Killingly, said in a statement that the House Republican’s budget would have better offered funding for crisis care.

“There should be no surprises regarding the partisan biennium budget’s lack of funding for mobile crisis centers in the first fiscal year. The decision to allocate funding elsewhere comes despite the ongoing discussions about mental health challenges that often arise during our legislative sessions,” said Dauphinais, who is also a member of the behavioral health committee.

The urgent crisis centers work with mobile crisis units to make sure kids who have immediate mental health needs get help. The crisis units often serve more rural areas of Connecticut that are further from the urgent crisis centers in New Haven, New London, Waterbury and Hartford.

Steck said the mobile crisis centers are at more of an immediate risk if they don’t get more money in this fiscal year.

“The programs can continue because they had some state dollars,” Steck said. “But each of the sites is in jeopardy if they don’t come up with these resources.”

The mobile crisis centers also operate 24/7, which was initially paid for with federal COVID relief money through the end of calendar year 2026, said Office of Policy and Management Senior Policy Advisor Claudio Gualtieri during a public meeting last month.

Gualtieri said the state Department of Children and Families is looking for unspent COVID relief money to carry the centers through the year and will “braid any other additional funding that may be needed,” to get them to 2027 when the funding is in the state budget.

“I do think there’s a path forward,” Gualtieri said.

Clarification: A previous version of this story left out the official name for mobile crisis centers. The resources provided are called emergency mobile crisis intervention services.