Harrisburg, PA – Today, Governor Josh Shapiro met with the Commonwealth’s Behavioral Health Council and Advisory Committee to unveil a new statewide action plan for behavioral health. The Governor created the Council when he signed Executive Order 2023-20, which directed the Council to develop a plan for state leaders, local governments, and community providers to deliver improved, faster and higher quality behavioral health care services for all Pennsylvanians.
The Council delivered on the Governor's directive by examining the current state of Pennsylvania’s behavioral health care system, finding points for improvement, and offering 41 recommendations to improve access to care and strengthen support for Pennsylvanians seeking mental health and addiction care services.
“Since taking office, my Administration has been steadfast in our commitment to improving Pennsylvania’s behavioral health care system — and from securing the first ever dedicated state funding for the 988 crisis hotline to historic investments in school mental health and safety, we’ve delivered real results,” said Governor Shapiro. “This plan builds on that progress. My Administration is moving ahead as quickly as possible to implement the recommendations we can make unilaterally – and I’m calling on the members of the General Assembly to take action on the remaining recommendations to strengthen Pennsylvania’s behavioral health system.”
The Behavioral Health Council’s statewide action plan was developed with 33 leaders from the Governor’s Office, the Pennsylvania departments of Human Services, Health, Aging, Drug and Alcohol Programs, Education, Military and Veterans Affairs, Corrections, State, Labor & Industry, and Agriculture; the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, Pennsylvania State Police, Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office, legislators from both parties in the General Assembly, local county leaders, and Pennsylvanians with lived experience — in coordination with an advisory committee of 25 subject matter experts and community members.
For nearly three years, the Council and its Advisory Committee consulted with more than 100 people from each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties and held monthly meetings to discuss their findings, identify recommended changes, and develop their comprehensive plan.
Through this community engagement, the Council found that Pennsylvania’s behavioral health care system is fragmented, with providers operating in parallel systems but rarely communicating with one another, while individuals who seek support outpace the system’s capabilities. The Council also found that patients often have to retell their stories at every door because providers cannot see one another’s records. With need outpacing the system’s capacity, Council members also identified a workforce shortage where low pay, complex licensure requirements, high training costs, duplicative audits, and administrative burdens drive clinicians out of the field.
Similarly, the Council identified geographic gaps in service, where rural residents travel long distances — or wait weeks — and crisis services, withdrawal management beds, and mobile units are scarce outside of urban areas.
The Council also found that young people often navigate a patchwork of programs run by different offices, and specialized geriatric behavioral health services are sorely lacking. Put together, these challenges have created a complex system that’s too hard to access for too many Pennsylvanians.
To address these issues and provide support whether someone seeks help at a clinic, school, crisis center, nursing facility, jail, or community organization, the Behavioral Health Council’s statewide action plan outlines six goals:
- Develop an Integrated Care System – Build a statewide integrated care model recognized by providers and payers, link 911 and 988 crisis response, align payment across Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial insurance, and connect mental health and substance use providers so people with co-occurring conditions are served in one place.
- Expand Access to Services – Reduce crisis wait times and expand walk-in centers, invest upstream in prevention and early intervention, grow housing and residential capacity, expand overdose prevention and treatment access within a recovery-oriented framework, improve public navigation, and enable flexible staffing models.
- Strengthen the Workforce and Provider Support – Unify licensing across agencies, consolidate duplicative audits and standardize documentation across payers, simplify enrollment and billing, integrate and fairly compensate peer specialists, raise workforce pay, secure sustainable crisis funding, and build a pipeline into the field.
- Enhance Accountability and Transparency – Create a statewide provider directory, pursue an All-Payer Claims Database, modernize cross-agency information sharing under the 2024 federal Part 2 reforms and Pennsylvania's Acts 32 and 33 of 2022, enforce behavioral health coverage parity, standardize quality metrics, and strengthen county data capacity.
- Advance Equity in Behavioral Health – Expand rural mobile services and address transportation barriers, strengthen substance use services in high-need areas, improve care for youth with complex needs and in schools, address social media effects on youth, build capacity for older adults, and develop a diverse and culturally responsive workforce.
- Improve Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health Integration – Fix competency evaluation delays through community-based restoration rather than institutional expansion, map and fund diversion at every intercept, expand co-responder programs with rural alternatives, implement the Keystones to Health Medicaid reentry waiver, and ensure adequate treatment during incarceration.
Read the Behavioral Health Council’s full statewide action plan here.
Accompanying these goals, the Council provided 41 recommendations with approximately 200 actionable steps for implementation, including performance measures, funding requirements, regulatory changes, and more. Following today’s meeting, the Shapiro Administration will begin the required work to implement these recommendations, including collaboration with the Council’s bipartisan legislative members.
Shapiro Administration’s Progress to Support Behavioral Health Care
Since taking office, Governor Shapiro has been committed to strengthening Pennsylvania’s behavioral health care system, investing in key initiatives while pushing for increased access across the Commonwealth:
- In FY 2026-27, Governor Shapiro secured $10 million in first-ever dedicated state funding to support 988 lifeline operations and building call center capacity while continuing to invest $750,000 to support 211 Communication Services.
- The 2026-27 budget also delivered $5 million to maintain walk-in crisis stabilization centers and brought the total investment in school safety and mental health funding to $400 million.
- In the FY23-24 and FY 2024-25 budgets, the Governor secured a total investment of $40 million for county mental health base funding.
- The 2024-25 budget continued funding the PA Department of Corrections’ Medication Assisted Treatment program and provided the funding to establish a veteran walk-in outreach center.
In addition to these investments, the Shapiro Administration has been leading on the expansion of peripartum depression screening to support the mental health of new mothers.
Building on three years of progress, the Behavioral Health Council’s statewide action plan provides new pathways to increase and improve the quality and accessibility of Pennsylvania’s behavioral health care system.
Read the Behavioral Health Council’s full statewide action plan here.
Read more about Governor Shapiro’s 2026-27 budget, view the Governor’s remarks as prepared here, or watch the Governor’s delivered remarks here.