The CANS Lifetime Assessment is still under development.  Implementing a brand new assessment tool that is not yet available for implementation in an EHR and/or for staff to be trained upon is not likely to be successfully rolled out by 7/1/2026.  It remains unclear what portions of the CNA will also need to be done in conjunction with this assessment. Early projections have indicated that the assessment may take nearly 3 hours to complete by a Licensed Clinician.  Given the shortage of licensed behavioral health professionals, the heavy lean on Licensed Clinicians in other areas of CPST, and the increased time to complete an assessment there are likely to be significant impacts on the availability of care to members and subsequently a disincentive to provide this level of care.  It is likely that these changes will manifest in increased costs to Medicaid through declining primary and behavioral health conditions in your members and higher use of emergency medicine to include ED visits as well as leveraging the appendix G crisis services.