OT County-based facility serves a number of counties

By Tom Hintgen

Otter Tail County Correspondent

Several years ago, following the closing of the Regional Treatment Center (RTC), Fergus Falls-based Productive Alternatives (PA) opened a Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU) helping people in need here in west-central Minnesota.

The CSU operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week while specializing on people facing mental health challenges. A support team assists a person going through a crisis and helps in getting that person back on his or her feet.

The average length of stay is about 3-4 days, with CSU funding coming from the Otter Tail, Becker, Clay and Wilkin Mental Health Consortium, from third-party payers such as private insurance and from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS).

Success with the Fergus Falls Crisis Stabilization Unit has led to a soon-to-be opened second CSU operated by Productive Alternatives (P.A.) which has served persons with disabilities in Otter Tail County and area counties since 1959. P.A. has expanded its operations in recent years.

The new CSU will hopefully open in July 2024 at Hoffman, serving the counties of Douglas, Grant, Pope, Stevens and Traverse.

“We will refer to the Hoffman facility as Region 4 South,” says Steve Skauge, president of Productive Alternatives. “Funding for the Hoffman operations, similar to the CSU in Fergus Falls, will also come from a Mental Health Consortium, third-party payers and from the Minnesota DHS.”

Assistance from State Legislature

CSU rates at the Fergus Falls facility were frozen for many years, and a language change in the state statute was sought. PA needed to negotiate a rate which would be reflective of actual costs at the Fergus Falls-based CSU.

“It took three legislative sessions to finally get this bill passed,” Skauge said.

Former State Rep. Bud Nornes and former State Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen were the initial sponsors of the bill. After the retirement of Nornes new State Rep. Jordan Rasmusson, who later became a state senator, gave his wholehearted support in strengthening the CSU.

The CSU was included in an omnibus package containing health, human services and early childhood measures which was approved by the State House on a bipartisan basis.

“One of my top priorities as a legislator is to improve access to mental health services,” Rasmusson said. “My mission with this bill was to strengthen the few crisis stabilization units we had left as a state.”

The Senate companion proposal, authored by Ingebrigtsen, was included in the State Senate’s related omnibus bill. Rasmusson says the approved state legislation laid the groundwork for providing critical support to Minnesota residents experiencing a mental health crisis.

Skauge, after the new legislative was signed into law, went right to work negotiating for new rates and was successful.

He said that passage of legislation for the CSU, on a bipartisan basis, gave him hope for the future regarding legislators and their ability to compromise for the best interests of Minnesota residents who have mental health needs.