The Sulphur Springs Union School District governing board has unanimously voted to sign off on an agreement with Los Angeles County intended to help district schools expand their mental health services by offloading the insurance reimbursement process to the county.
Under the memorandum of understanding, the Los Angeles County Office of Education would take on the administrative work of coordinating with Sulphur Springs schools and insurance companies, both private insurers and Medi-Cal, to guarantee coverage of a range of behavioral health services for students.
That includes screenings and assessments, individual and group counseling and crisis intervention, said Paul Frisina, the district’s executive director of special education and student support services.
Those services would be covered at no cost to families.
“It’s a multi-billion-dollar state program, focusing on prevention, early intervention and creating equity, making sure mental health access is there for even students facing barriers,” Frisina said.
While the upfront cost of preparing county staff for that administrative work is covered by a grant, the county would eventually start receiving a fraction of insurance reimbursement money to sustain the program. Starting in school year 2027-28, LACOE would receive 7.5% to cover administrative costs, and 15% each year afterward.
Frisina told Sulphur Springs trustees during their regular meeting Wednesday the district was eligible for $445,000, which under the agreement would be given to the county to train staff and create the billing infrastructure to handle insurance claims.
That grant comes from the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, a $4.7 billion California program established in 2021 in part to concentrate more of the state’s youth mental health system in the place kids spend most of their time, Frisina said.
“They thought, ‘Let’s shift the money to schools to see if we can make a dent in (mental health needs) that way,’” Frisina said. “Districts have signed up, and it’s built enough momentum where LACOE is helping other districts jump in.”
Board clerk Ken Chase said he was in favor of the program, but added that he could potentially see LACOE determining their percentage of reimbursement funds isn’t enough.
“The way this would not continue, is just that either the amount they anticipate, 15% isn’t enough, and seeing that either increase, and maybe even dramatically, who knows, or just that they mess it up,” Chase said.
Frisina agreed that was a possibility, and said that the school district could conceivably take over that administrative work in the future if costs ran too high with the county.
“Many years down the road, (if) we see this as something that we have down, we can see what LACOE does, (then) we could do the same thing ourselves,” Frisina said. “We’ve done that with other things in the past, where maybe we hire two people that run this for us, and it’s way less than the 15% we pay to LACOE. It could transition to something way down the road.”
Frisina added that one significant advantage of partnering with LACOE is its leverage over insurance companies when it comes to reimbursement rates for services.
“Because it’s LACOE, who’s a huge billing operator, the cost won’t be, ‘This insurance pays this much, this one pays this much,’ they will set rates, and insurance will have to play ball,” Frisina said. “And apparently they’re all playing ball. This will provide a lot of payments to them.”
