New Ohio Recovery Housing Rules Take Effect January 1, 2025

Client Alert

January 2, 2025

Ohio is implementing new regulations to enhance accountability and quality in recovery housing. These changes, effective January 1, 2025, will impact certified community behavioral health providers and their referral practices.

The following text is an excerpt from the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, published on December 31, 2024.

"In accordance with Ohio law (R.C. 5119.394), OhioMHAS has established a registry of recovery housing residences that are accredited (or its equivalent) by certain accreditation organizations or, if newer (in operation for not more than 18 months), are actively engaged in efforts to obtain such accreditation. Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, certified community behavioral health providers are prohibited from referring clients to a recovery housing residence that is not on the statewide recovery housing residence registry at the time of the referral."

Read the full update here.

If your organization needs assistance navigating the new recovery housing rules or ensuring compliance with Ohio’s updated regulations, please contact Member Daphne Kackloudis at dlkackloudis@bmdllc.com.

Posted by Brennan Manna Diamond

Ohio's 2024-2025 Fiscal Budget - Behavioral Health Updates

July 13, 2023

Ohio’s 2024-2025 State Budget was signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine on July 3, 2023. Behavioral health is an area that Governor DeWine expressed great interest in supporting and the final version of the Budget does reflect some of those initiatives. The Budget prioritizes growing the behavioral health workforce and increasing research and innovation by building community capacity for care that offers better crisis response services and treatment, increased prevention efforts, and increased provision of residential and outpatient services. Outlined below are notable Budget items geared toward achieving growth and improvement in the behavioral health field as well as some key items that were rejected by Governor DeWine’s veto.

Posted by Ashley Watson with Mercedes Sieg

Supreme Court Rules that Employers Must Show Substantial Increased Costs to Legally Decline Employees’ Religious Accommodation Requests

June 29, 2023

On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Groff v. DeJoy that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) employers must show, in order to decline religious accommodations, that the burden of granting religious accommodations to employees will result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of an employer’s particular business, thus amending the prior, simple standard of a “de minimis” undue hardship.

Posted by Bryan Meek, with Mercedes Sieg

Recent HIPAA Breach Settlements - Lessons Learned

June 19, 2023

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the consequences for providers may include settlements of $30,000 to $240,000. OCR recently released two settlements for improper breaches of protected health information (PHI) that are good examples of the major monetary penalties that can result from common HIPAA mistakes.

Posted by Ashley Watson

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