Community Behavioral Health (CBH) is Philadelphia’s publicly governed behavioral health managed care organization (BH-MCO). With looming changes to Medicaid policy at the federal level, CBH sought to quantify its economic and social impact and communicate how reductions in funding and eligibility would affect its patients and the broader regional economy.
ESI applied an input-output modeling approach to estimate the direct, indirect, and induced economic impacts from CBH’s $1.3 billion in annual expenditures on its workforce, administration and provider reimbursements across the city and state economies. The study also evaluated the tax revenue return to local and state government and reviewed existing literature and program data to qualitatively assess the broader social impacts of behavioral health services in areas like workforce stability, homelessness, emergency care, and the criminal justice system. Key findings include:
- CBH serves over 788,000 Medicaid-eligible Philadelphians through a network of more than 260 providers across 870 care sites.
- CBH’s operations generated $2.01 billion in total economic output statewide and supported 13,450 full-time equivalent jobs, including nearly 10,000 in Philadelphia.
- The organization also contributed $27 million in tax revenue to the city and $274 million to the Commonwealth, inclusive of $199 million in MCO assessments.
Building from this analysis of the baseline activity level, ESI used projections from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services of Medicaid eligibility losses under the federal One, Big Beautiful Act (OBBA) to estimate the lost economic activity in Philadelphia from a proportionate reduction in CBH services and spending.
- Under the OBBA, CBH is projected to experience a loss of $111 million in expenditures, resulting in 1,110 lost jobs and $171 million in economic output
To learn more, visit: https://cbhphilly.org/about-us/data-reports-and-minutes/economic-and-social-impacts-of-cbhs-medicaid-funding