Policy Analysis

Over the past five years, Oklahoma has received nearly $750 million in funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the primary federal agency charged with advancing the nation’s behavioral health.

In this report, we examine policy options for ensuring parity compliance on SoonerSelect, Oklahoma’s Medicaid managed care program.

This resource aims to help counties identify and plan for evidence-based strategies to maximize the impact of funding opportunities for mental health and diversion.

Find summaries and tracking lists for the mental health bills we're watching in 2025.

As youth mental health continues to suffer, new statewide survey data found that about half of Oklahoma middle- and high-school students “always” or “often” felt the urge to use social media, and about a third used it as an escape from their problems.

Without further action from lawmakers, SB 511 will expire in 2026, threatening Oklahoma’s progress in addressing an epidemic of drug overdoses and cutting short opportunities to see the law’s public health benefits come to fruition.

Some states have begun using a new Medicaid strategy to offer limited health coverage to incarcerated people nearing their release date, creating a safer and more supportive community reentry period. We explore this strategy and its potential in Oklahoma.

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities and co-occurring mental health challenges face obstacles that make it difficult to access the behavioral health care they need. In this paper, we examine barriers to care such as stigma, a lack of training among providers, and disconnected community supports.

During the 2024 session, the Oklahoma Legislature passed key mental health bills and appropriated over $5 million to provide much-needed support to the state’s behavioral health workforce.

Oklahoma will soon have an updated definition to determine when someone may be held in protective custody for a mental health evaluation to determine whether they need to be involuntarily hospitalized.