Hey. It's November.

Full disclosure: I am sitting in a barbershop in Charleston SC, waiting for a haircut and wondering if Speaker Pelosi and her team will successful navigate the House rules to pass the House version of health reform today. I am not actively involved in the process, but the process in play in Washington this year will affect the way in which the CBHI is implemented in a big way. I am hopeful that it will work to the benefit of children, but I see many ways in which it could work against our efforts. So I am apprehensive. I am excited. I am nervous. I am hopeful.

With that mix of emotions, I don't want to do anything that could conceivable disrupt the process. Hence the silence of the last week.

There have been a few interesting things on the Massachusetts Children's Mental Health front.

• Blue Cross/ Blue Shield put out a paper on the status of the mental health workforce in Massachusetts that is worth reading here.
• Lesley Alderman had a nice piece in the New York Times on how patients should think about mental health parity, which kicks into play on January 1.
• All of the "Rosie D" remedy services under the CBHI have now kicked into play, except for Crisis Management Services, which has not been approved by CMS. The new CMS Administrator is likely to be appointed after the health reform debate is done; one wonders how this is affecting the negotiations on this point.

Progress seems steady, as the Massachusetts State budget continues to present challenges.

Back to health reform now.