Mental health nonprofit to honor clinic owners who pushed Idaho Legislature to retract budget cuts

When two mental health clinic owners in Idaho set out to restore critical services for people with severe mental illness, they faced an uphill battle.

The Idaho Legislature was gearing up for across-the-board budget cuts. But Laura Scuri and Ric Boyce armed lawmakers with information and data — and spent time talking to journalists when four patients died after the mobile treatment service had been cut. 

The two often worked behind the scenes, directly with lawmakers instead of testifying before committees. 

“We formed individual relationships with half the Legislature pretty much,” Boyce recalled in an interview.

In the end, the programs that they advocated served as a rare instance of a budget cut that state lawmakers reversed. 

On the final day of this year’s legislative session, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed into law a bill that temporarily restored funding for the programs that the two providers pushed for: the Assertive Community Treatment program, a mobile program for people with severe mental illness, and peer support services, which helps people navigate treatment. 

After four patients died, Idaho governor approves restoring cut Medicaid mental health programs

Now, a mental health nonprofit plans to honor the two. Next month, the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Idaho plans to award them both the Kathie Garrett Impact Award, named after a former Idaho lawmaker. 

In a news release, the nonprofit said the duo’s advocacy “led to the return of those programs.”

The award came as a surprise. 

“I don’t think either one of us were thinking for a second it’s something that would be noticed,” said Boyce, a clinical social worker who owns Mental Health Specialists, a clinic in eastern Idaho’s Chubbuck. “What was important to us was that we were able to get the clients we were working with back into the program they needed so badly. And that was enough.”

Scuri, who co-owns Access Behavioral Health Services in Boise, said it’s her first award. 

“So it’s extra special to me — especially with the environment that we’re in, and all the changes,” she said.

Boyce said providers often feel like government decisions are final. But he said this experience tested that conception.

“What I learned was that there are ways to make change happen even when it seems hopeless,” he said.

But to do that, he said, requires a lot of work — and help. 

While he and Scuri were talking with lawmakers, he said they also found lawmakers coming to them for answers — to questions raised by community members in letters and direct outreach on all sorts of Medicaid changes, not just the cuts they were focused on.

“Even individual advocacy, of sending a single letter, cumulatively had an effect. And those things were changing the minds of legislators,” Boyce said. 

Their advocacy experience taught Scuri to approach change as a process.

“And really understanding that, as you go through that process, it’s not always gonna feel like you’re gonna get that change,” she said. “And so really staying in it, even though it gets really hard, and there are times when you don’t think you can overcome all the barriers.”

And she said education is a big part of advocacy. 

The two are set to receive their awards at the World Mental Health Day Gala and Advocacy Awards on Oct. 9 at JUMP in downtown Boise. 

Looking ahead, the two are hoping to continue their advocacy as the state prepares to shift to privatized management of all Medicaid benefits in the coming years. 

The services they pushed for were cut by Magellan, the company that runs Medicaid mental health benefits in the state, after its pay from the state was cut late last year following an executive order from Little. 

Scuri said the shift to privatized Medicaid management, commonly called managed care, is “one of the biggest things that’s gonna happen in health care in Idaho.”

Boyce said the two are working to make sure the rollout is successful. 

“There have been repeated cuts to mental health … since December. And it is to a point that we’re speaking to people very regularly who are on the edge of … closing down their businesses,” he said.