2026 CCBHC Impact Report

From our partner organization the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.

Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics now serve 3.4 million people a year across 48 states and territories. The National Council’s 2026 CCBHC Impact Report, drawn from a survey of the nation’s 539 certified clinics, documents what the model has delivered since Medicaid began paying for the full cost of care: more people served, shorter waits, a larger workforce, and substance use treated alongside mental health in one place.

The report’s conclusion is that CCBHCs are no longer a demonstration. They are the operating standard for community behavioral health, and their next test is financial: sustaining the model as Medicaid coverage shifts.

Key Findings from the 2026 CCBHC Impact Report

Topic	Key Findings
Reach	539 CCBHCs served 3.4 million people in 2025, up 13% since January 2024. Clinics report a 42% average increase in clients served since certification; 768,529 people got care who had never had it before.
Who is served	54% of clients have a serious mental illness or serious emotional disturbance — 1.01 million adults and 373,000 children. 501,720 people received substance use disorder treatment. 14% of clients are uninsured.
Access	Average wait for a routine visit is 7 days, against a national average of 31–48 days. 80% of clinics see routine needs within 10 days; 25% the same day.
Workforce	32,086 new positions created since certification. Median staff growth of 57% at Medicaid CCBHCs. Vacancy rate 9%, against 21% nationally. 87% hired care coordinators; 70% hired peer specialists.
Substance use	90% of clinics offer at least one medication for opioid use disorder; 50% of clients with OUD receive it, triple the national benchmark. 94% put SUD and mental health providers on one team.
Crisis care	75% provide mobile crisis directly; 87% provide crisis stabilization; 89% have a mobile crisis team dispatched through 988.
Youth and schools	96% partner with schools; 73% deliver care inside schools and childcare settings, reaching 9,000+ schools. 57% serve more young people since certification.
Growth	33 states now run the model through Medicaid, up from 8 at the start. Rural CCBHCs grew fastest: 46% more people served since certification.

What This Means for the Field

The report shows what a payment model built for the whole cost of care can do. Where grants seed crisis teams, Medicaid sustains them: 53% of Medicaid-funded CCBHCs added mobile crisis, against 25% of grant-only clinics.

Path Forward’s partners see three priorities in these findings:

• Sustain the payment model. The results depend on Medicaid rates that cover the full cost of care. Path Forward supports the Ensuring Excellence in Mental Health Act (S. 3402 / H.R. 8487) to lock in that financing.
• Integrate substance use care. CCBHCs treat addiction on the same team, with the same urgency, as mental illness — the standard Path Forward and Shatterproof advocate across all of health care.
• Measure and improve. 76% of CCBHCs use clinical measurement dashboards and 32% are already in value-based arrangements, proof that measurement-informed care works in community settings.

The call to action is simple: fund CCBHCs through Medicaid in every state, keep federal grant support steady, and let the clinics that have proven the model keep scaling it.