RALEIGH — North Carolina is directing more than $17 million in federal rural-health funding to behavioral-health clinics, mobile crisis teams, opioid-treatment access and other mental-health services across rural communities.
The package includes $4 million for three Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, $3 million for stationary medication units that expand access to medications for opioid use disorder, and $4 million to extend Mobile Outreach, Response, Engagement and Stabilization teams into six additional counties.
The clinic funding has been awarded to three Local Management Entities/Managed Care Organizations. State officials said Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics served more than 21,000 people statewide in 2024-25 and are intended to increase the share of Medicaid recipients beginning mental-health treatment while reducing emergency-department use among people seeking mental-health services.
The opioid-treatment units are planned for Graham, Rutherford, Cumberland, Bertie and Columbus counties. The mobile crisis expansion covers Beaufort, Edgecombe, Greene, Polk, Transylvania and Wilkes counties, bringing home- and community-based support to children and families during behavioral-health crises.
Additional allocations include $3 million for coordinated specialty care for young people experiencing first-episode psychosis, $2.9 million for regional Rural Crisis Partnerships and $800,000 to expand NC MATTERS, the state’s perinatal psychiatry access program. Future NC MATTERS funding is contingent on additional federal support.
The awards are part of more than $213 million that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services provided North Carolina for the 2026-27 fiscal year through the Rural Health Transformation Program. State officials say the larger program is aimed at improving health outcomes for more than 3.5 million rural North Carolina residents.
For health systems, behavioral-health providers and local crisis networks, the funding directs new resources toward clinics, treatment access and community response capacity. The programs’ stated goals include reducing hospital and residential placements, improving earlier access to care and easing pressure on emergency departments and first responders.