A third person who was served by Idaho’s Assertive Community Treatment, or ACT program, died this month in the Boise area.
ACT is a medical and psychiatric treatment program that has been in place for decades. It provided a range of services, which included funding for mental health providers and nurses to travel to meet with patients in their community. That part of the program’s funding was cut in December.
The cause of the person’s death has not been released. However, Laura Scuri, who co-owns Access Behavioral Health Services in Boise and ran the region’s ACT team, said she believes the outreach that’s part of that program might have helped the individual who died get needed medical treatment.
“ The rapport that the (ACT) teams build with the clients is remarkable,” she said. “That trust translates to adherence.”
Because of patient privacy laws, clinicians are limited in what they can say about specific patients or their deaths, Scuri said. However, she said, deaths are investigated by Idaho’s Department of Health and Welfare.
Ric Boyce, a clinician who administered the ACT team in Pocatello, said an ACT patient who died following a post-procedural infection in his region also might have gotten medical treatment sooner had the team been funded to conduct those visits.
He said the kind of patients treated under ACT need intensive support. Now, their only option is to make it to an in-office appointment.
“We (would) go and knock on these individuals’ doors, and very frequently they're dealing with severe mental health symptoms at the time,” he said. “(They) are paranoid about leaving their homes, or paranoid about somebody watching them. They're really struggling to differentiate reality from fiction.”
Stephen Weeg, a former State Hospital South administrator, oversaw the mental hospital when ACT was put into place in the 1980s.
He said some patients who were successfully treated through ACT had previously been long-term hospital patients.
“Assertive Community Treatment made real differences,” he said. “We could stabilize in the state hospital, but the kind of support system they need in the community makes all the difference in the world.”
Without ACT, providers say they worry patients with psychosis could become a danger to themselves or others.
In December, the Idaho Sheriff’s Association sent a letter to Gov. Brad Little and state lawmakers warning that the elimination of services, including ACT, would increase police call volumes, involuntary holds, incarceration, and civil and criminal court cases.
“Law enforcement is not trained on how to deal with serious mental illness. It's not their job,” Weeg said.
Some clinicians worry that a lack of training could end poorly for patients.
While most people with mental illness are not violent, people with psychotic disorders are both more likely to be the victims of violence, and to commit violent acts, according to research published in the National Library of Medicine. Treatment is associated with a lowered risk of violence.
Some state hospitals have already reported increased utilization for December and January.
Providers say they’ve lost touch with many of the ACT clients they can no longer meet in the community, and that others are struggling.
“ All of our clients that lost ACT backslid,” Scuri said. “The reports that I'm getting from family members is that it's just really hard to step back in and not have any support.”
Clinicians are now hoping a bill by state Rep. Ben Fuhriman, which had its first reading Monday morning, will restore funding for those services.
The bill’s fiscal note predicts that funding ACT services would save an estimated $6.3 million to $9 million annually, while costing the state $1.3 million for fiscal year 2026 and $3.9 million for fiscal year 2027.
