County clinic ready and waiting for state license

With its medical director now on site, job descriptions written for its prospective staff and policies, procedures and fees mapped out, an Ozaukee County clinic to help those with mental illness or substance issues is expected to be ready in time for its opening in less than 90  days.

Now if only the state would license it.

“We’re so on target right now, our biggest wait is on licensure,” County Human Services Director Kimberly Falkner told members of the Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday.

“As soon as we get the ‘go’ for our license, we’re ready to put those positions online and start hiring,” Falkner said.

Committee Chairman Patrick Foy wondered aloud when he should start to worry whether the center, officially known as the partial hospitalization plan, will launch in time and if there was anything he and other committee members could do to speed up the process.

“We’re not desperate yet, but if we’re sitting here in 90 days?” he said.

“I’d give you a phone number if I had one,” Falkner said.

The day treatment center is expected to be a huge step forward in the county’s effort to deal with what health and law enforcement officials have called an “epidemic” that has taxed resources in law enforcement, the courts and hospitals.

Plans call for opening the center by November in the County Administration Center in downtown Port Washington.

The center would give people a place to go for treatment, thereby reducing the number of emergency and crisis situations that put pressure on families, law enforcement and hospital emergency rooms.

Officials estimate a county-run day treatment program could help up to 300 people annually who suffer from mental health or addictions.

The program would provide intermediate care and be the first of its kind in the county and the only one regionally outside of Milwaukee with no such facility in Washington, Sheboygan or Manitowoc counties, Falkner said.

Intermediate care provides short-term, supportive services for people needing more help than they can get at home but not full hospital care.

The program would operate five days per week, serving up to 16 clients per day,  provide integrated treatment for serious mental illness and substance use and provide a ready treatment solution for individuals in crisis, reducing the need for voluntary and involuntary commitments, Falkner has said.

To lead the center, the county has hired Michael T. Churchwell, a psychiatrist, who began work on July 1 and is already seeing patients, Falkner said.

“Dr. Churchwell has met with staff and with community partners. We’ve had a lot of positive feedback on starting the partial hospitalization program.

Churchwell has led a similar program in Minneapolis.

On Tuesday he said a major attraction for him to the job in Ozaukee County is the opportunity to build a program “from scratch.”

Another is that he formally worked in the Milwaukee area for Froedtert and enjoyed living in the area.

Churchwell is living in Port Washington temporarily while his wife finishes up her job in the Twin Cities.

The center would have a staff of seven, including Churchwell, a case manager, a behavioral health manager and an occupational therapist.

The county’s share of the staff salaries would total $661,168 per year, not counting equipment, furniture and supplies, officials say.

Clients would pay for services through Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance.

In March, the County Board approved committing $600,000 to be used to cover start-up costs.

Those funds were secured by the county from a legal settlement with drug companies and retailers who, according to court documents, “flooded the market with highly addictive drugs claiming they were safe and efficacious for long-term use.”

The county currently has more than $1.7 million in opioid settlement funds available, with a total allocation of $3.7 million expected through 2038.

Those funds must be used for opioid harm reduction and treatment expansion.

About $225,000 of those funds are being used this year to fund two “co-responder” teams in which specially trained sheriff’s deputies and county social workers respond to crisis events in which substance use or mental illness are factors.

The teams also operate proactively before crisis events occur.

Officials say the center would complement the responder teams by providing an alternative to emergency detention, reducing jail admissions related to behavioral health crises, reducing the number of individuals waiting in jail for treatment and reducing hospital emergency room visits.

The center would offer “a more humane and clinically appropriate stabilization pathway,” Falkner has said. “Instead of cycling individuals through hospital and jail systems, the county would have a structured, recovery-focused option.”

Churchwell said similar programs exist in Brookfield and Menomonee Falls but Ozaukee’s is the only program in the region operated by a county.

“We are offering a lot more than any other partial hospitalization program in the area,” Falkner said Tuesday.