California Mental Health Services Authority

What California Mental Health Services Authority does

California Mental Health Services Authority (CalMHSA) is a Joint Powers Authority formed in 2009 by California counties to deliver collaborative, multi-county behavioral health programs on behalf of its 58 member county governments. Headquartered in Sacramento with 51-100 employees, the organization operates as an independent administrative and fiscal public entity, administering state-funded programs including the Mental Health Services Act, Behavioral Health Student Services Act, and Workforce Education and Training funds. CalMHSA does not provide clinical services directly; instead it functions as a centralized operating layer for county behavioral health departments.

CalMHSA's technology platform centers on SmartCare, a semi-statewide Electronic Health Record system connecting 27 California counties and extending to 35% of the state's Medi-Cal beneficiaries, paired with CalMHSA Connex—a FHIR-based health information exchange purpose-built for behavioral health and substance use disorder data sharing that meets California DxF and CMS interoperability requirements. Supporting infrastructure includes the Presumptive Transfer Portal (inter-county billing under AB 1051), a credentialing platform via CertifyOS, concurrent review services via Acentra Health, virtual clinical supervision via Motivo, and Power BI performance dashboards. The organization also operates the standardized Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Certification Program across 58 counties, having certified 6,000+ peers, and delivers a portfolio of workforce, training, and research programs including loan repayment, the Behavioral Health Fiscal Academy, and RAND-evaluated Full Service Partnership innovation projects.

CalMHSA is financed through state appropriations and program-specific grants passed through to counties and community-based organizations; it does not charge counties for administrative services and does not publicly disclose revenue. The organization has administered over $33 million in CalHOPE funding, $18.8 million in Sacramento PEI grants, and $300,000 in student wellness grants, with programmatic scope set to expand under California's transition from MHSA to the Behavioral Health Services Act (BHSA). As a publicly-owned government entity, CalMHSA has no equity investors and is governed by a board with one representative per member county.

Name

California Mental Health Services Authority

Legal name

California Mental Health Services Authority

Website

https://calmhsa.org

Company type

Public

Founded year

2009

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

CalMHSA is a 2009 Joint Powers Authority serving California's 58 county behavioral health departments, operating the SmartCare EHR across 27 counties, the CalMHSA Connex HIE, peer certification, workforce, and grant administration programs funded by state appropriations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Public Behavioral Health Services Administration

NAICS

Administration of Public Health Programs (923120)

SIC

Hospital & Medical Service Plans (6324), Services-Health Services (8000)

akta.pro primary industry

Government Program Administrative Services (Medicare/Medicaid ASO/TPA) (HLAEALAO)

akta.pro secondary industry

Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs) & Public Behavioral Health Providers (HLAFACAI)

Keywords

• Behavioral health services
• County health administration
• Electronic health records
• Health information exchange
• Workforce development programs

Headquarters

HQ city

Sacramento

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. State Funding Administration: CalMHSA serves as an administrative and fiscal public entity representing California counties, administering state-funded programs including the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), Behavioral Health Student Services Act, and Workforce Education and Training (WET) funds. Revenue comes from state appropriations passed through to member counties for program implementation.
2. Peer Support Certification: County behavioral health plans selected CalMHSA to implement a standardized Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist certification program. In California, certified Peer support specialists are eligible for Medi-Cal reimbursement through county behavioral health plans, with CalMHSA managing the certification program, approving training entities, and certifying individuals.
3. Grant Administration: CalMHSA assists county behavioral health departments in administering Time-Limited Community Driven Prevention and Early Intervention grants, including the Sacramento County Community-Driven PEI Grant Program investing $18.8 million through two funding cycles supporting 63 community-based organizations.
4. CalHOPE Support Program: In partnership with California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), CalMHSA awarded over $33 million to 21 community organizations implementing the CalHOPE Support Program providing in-person and virtual outreach and non-clinical support services. Program funding ended June 30, 2025.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

CalMHSA is an independent administrative and fiscal Joint Powers Authority representing all 58 California counties that develops and operates centralized behavioral health solutions on behalf of member counties. Its core offerings span health IT infrastructure (SmartCare EHR connecting 27 counties, CalMHSA Connex HIE), managed care services (concurrent review, credentialing, quality assurance), workforce programs (WET, loan repayment, peer certification, clinical supervision), training academies, analytics (HEDIS, PowerBI dashboards), and grant administration. The organization does not provide clinical services directly but enables county behavioral health departments to meet regulatory, operational, and workforce demands.

Product overview

CalMHSA operates as a multi-module platform and service organization serving California counties rather than a single-product company. The core platform is SmartCare, a semi-statewide Electronic Health Record system connecting 27 counties that extends to 35% of Medi-Cal beneficiaries, paired with CalMHSA Connex - a FHIR-based health information exchange for secure behavioral health data sharing. Supporting modules include the Presumptive Transfer Portal for inter-county billing, credentialing platform via CertifyOS, and concurrent review/authorization services via Acentra Health. The Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Certification Program manages certification for peer workers across 58 counties. Additional offerings span workforce solutions (WET program, loan repayment, clinical supervision via Motivo), training programs (Behavioral Health Fiscal Academy, Clinical Practice, 5150 Training, Community Planning Process), housing interventions, HEDIS quality measures calculation, performance dashboards, CalAIM implementation support, research and evaluation partnerships, and impact grants administration. The organization functions as a Joint Powers Authority facilitating cross-county collaboration rather than a direct service provider.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• CalMHSA Connex: California's first and only county behavioral health-centric health information exchange designed for seamless and secure sharing of behavioral health information among diverse health care entities.
• SmartCare
• Presumptive Transfer Portal
• Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Certification Program
• Behavioral Health Fiscal Academy
• Community Planning Process

Products and services

• SmartCare Electronic Health Record System A semi-statewide electronic health record system connecting 27 California counties, enabling clinicians to share records across counties and extending to 35% of the state's Medi-Cal beneficiaries. Designed for California county behavioral health departments operating as Mental Health Plans, Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System Plans, and Drug Medi-Cal State Plans.
• CalMHSA Connex Health Information Exchange A behavioral health-centric health information exchange platform with FHIR-based APIs for confidential transmission of patient records, treatment plans, and outcomes across the behavioral health spectrum. Designed for diverse healthcare entities with emphasis on privacy, consent management, and 42 CFR Part 2 compliance. Includes Patient Access API and Provider Directory API on HL7 FHIR R4.
• Presumptive Transfer Portal A centralized billing platform that reforms inter-county billing for California counties serving presumptively transferred clients under AB 1051. Streamlines operations, reduces administrative costs, improves cash flow, enhances accuracy through automated calculations, and provides real-time transaction tracking.
• Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Certification Program A single, standardized certification program for Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialists selected by county behavioral health plans. CalMHSA manages certification, approves training entities, certifies individuals, conducts investigations, collects data, and offers training for peers and supervisors. Certified peers are eligible for Medi-Cal reimbursement through county behavioral health plans.
• Credentialing Platform (via CertifyOS partnership) A web-based credentialing platform provided through partnership with CertifyOS, an NCQA-certified Credentialing Verification Organization. Features include provider monitoring, communication mechanisms, provider outreach module, automated notifications, virtual credentialing committee module, and reporting/analytics. Available to California county behavioral health departments.
• Concurrent Review and Authorization Services Delegation program that lets county clinical staff focus on direct care by routing concurrent review and authorization for psychiatric inpatient hospital and psychiatric health facility services to Acentra Health. Includes notification of admissions, clinical documentation reviews, care coordination, discharge planning, denial notices, appeal adjudication, utilization reports, and quality assurance reviews.
• Full Service Partnership (FSP) Innovation Program A multi-county program that develops a consistent data-driven strategy for Full Service Partnership programs serving unhoused or at-risk individuals with severe mental illness. Works with 10+ counties (including Lake, Napa, Stanislaus) to define admission and graduation criteria, gather required data, and deliver effective FSP programs evaluated by RAND.
• Sacramento County PEI Grant Program (Impact Grants) Time-Limited Community Driven Prevention and Early Intervention grants that assist county behavioral health departments in administering grants to local community-based organizations. Sacramento program invested $18.8M supporting 63 CBOs with grants up to $500,000 each, serving 180,000+ residents.
• Workforce Education and Training (WET) Program State-funded workforce program addressing California's public mental health workforce challenges through educational loan repayment assistance, undergraduate scholarships for students in public mental health agencies, and postgraduate stipends for clinical master's and doctoral students.
• CalMHSA Loan Repayment Program Workforce retention program offering $50,000 per recipient for individuals identified by counties for hard-to-fill or hard-to-retain positions, in exchange for a three-year service commitment. Distinct from the WET program.
• Clinical Supervision Services (via Motivo) Virtual clinical supervision delivered through a HIPAA-compliant platform (Motivo partnership) that helps fill gaps for counties with pre-licensed staff but insufficient clinical supervisors. Counties can purchase individual, triad, or group supervision hours.
• Behavioral Health Fiscal Academy Structured training program for county behavioral health finance professionals at beginner and intermediate levels covering Medicaid/Medi-Cal funding, fiscal planning, and compliance. Includes nine fiscal training courses on behavioral health financing, grant budgets, BHSA budget modeling, revenue forecasting, and Prop 30 reimbursement.
• Clinical Practice Training Training on clinical documentation, coding, and key practice areas for practitioners in county plan delivery systems. Includes Clinical Documentation Guides for Specialty Mental Health Services and Substance Use Disorder Services, CPT Coding training, and 10-course documentation training series available for CE credits.
• Community Planning Process A stakeholder planning process created in collaboration with IDEO and sponsored by DHCS, providing guidebooks, trainings, structured processes, decision points, and tools for counties to lead behavioral health planning. Includes Equity in Action Communications Guide.
• Take Action for Mental Health Campaign A long-term statewide public awareness campaign promoting mental health awareness, reducing stigma, and preventing suicide. Deploys social media and digital marketing tools, provides toolkits, training, and supports the Directing Change youth video initiative.
• Housing Interventions Program Practical tools, guidance, and resources to support counties in implementing effective housing interventions for individuals with behavioral health needs. Includes HMIS project set-up instructions, Housing and Behavioral Health guidebook, and webinar series on housing access and case management.
• Data Explainer Webinar Series Educational webinar series supporting counties in advancing California's statewide behavioral health goals and population-level measures under the Behavioral Health Services Act. Covers statewide goals including Access to Care, Homelessness, Justice-Involvement, Overdoses and Suicides, with data dashboards for each measure.
• EBP Population Estimates Webinar Series Four webinars providing county-level estimates of populations that may have clinical need for key evidence-based practices under BH-CONNECT including Full-service Partnerships, Assertive Community Treatment, Forensic ACT, FSP Intensive Case Management, Individual Placement and Support, and Coordinated Specialty Care for First Episode Psychosis.
• HEDIS Quality Measures Calculation Service Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set calculation service for 43 counties managing Mental Health Plans, Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System Plans, and Drug Medi-Cal State Plans. CalMHSA holds NCQA HEDIS Certified Measure Vendor status for Measure Years 2024 and 2025, calculating nine measures annually for MHP and DMC-ODS counties and four measures for DMC State Plan counties.
• Performance Improvement Dashboards (PowerBI) PowerBI dashboards developed for counties using SmartCare EHR system providing actionable insights for care delivery, provider network management, policy implementation, compliance and reporting, and financial performance. Includes Access to Care, Homelessness, Justice-Involvement, Removal of Children from Home, Overdoses & Suicides, Untreated BH Conditions, Care Experience/Quality of Life, Engagement in School and Work, and Institutionalization dashboards.
• CalAIM Implementation Support Services Implementation support for California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) within behavioral health, including payment reform modeling, CPT coding resources, Short Doyle Medi-Cal references, documentation and policy support, and BHQIP technical assistance.
• Quality Assurance & Improvement Services QA/QI activities and requirements management including utilization management, research, clinical optimization, and performance. Includes policy development, DHCS compliance audits, chart review tools and coaching, and EQRO audit preparation.
• State Hospital Beds Coordination Support for counties in working with the California Department of State Hospitals on availability and cost stabilization of hospital beds for patients mandated to involuntary treatment under the Lanterman Petris Short Act. Includes discharge procedures and alternative placements.
• Research and Evaluation Services Collaborative research with independent researchers including RAND Corporation for data analysis and evaluation. Past research includes funding analysis, peer support certification outcomes, full-service partnerships evaluation, Help@Hand innovation assessment, and psychiatric bed needs analysis.
• Medi-Cal Provider Certification Training Free self-paced training for community-based organizations on becoming Medi-Cal certified, covering structure, financing, administration of Medi-Cal system, and opportunities/challenges. Available through CalMHSA Learning Management System.
• 5150 Training Program Comprehensive training on California involuntary holds titled 'Law and Ethics: Involuntary Treatment and the 5150 Process' offered in collaboration with Sutter Health and Garrett Law LLP. Available as live monthly sessions and asynchronous training for 28 days following each live session. Provides 3.0 hours of CE credit.
• Individual Service Level (ISL) Resources Suite of training and technical resources for counties to address new requirements for reporting non-Medi-Cal person-level encounter data under the Behavioral Health Services Act. Includes orientation webinars for Avatar, Credible, Epic, and SmartCare EHR systems, templates, sample contract language, and boilerplate contracts.
• Peer Hero Campaign Statewide digital advertising campaign sponsored with DHCS to raise awareness about the impact and role of Peers in behavioral health, inspire certification pursuit, and uplift voices of real Certified Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialists.
• Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Job Board Platform connecting county behavioral health departments and community agencies with Peer Support Specialists through job postings.
• Help@Hand Innovation Project A multi-year innovation project (completed June 2024) where 13 collaborative cities and counties (Berkeley, Kern, Los Angeles, Marin, Modoc, Mono, Monterey, Orange, Riverside, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Tehama) demonstrated how technology can be incorporated into behavioral health care. Funded by Mental Health Services Act and evaluated by UC Irvine, which found over 70% of teens and 80% of adults rated online tools useful.

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 180,000 Sacramento County residents served through PEI grant program; over 63 CBOs supported with grants up to $500,000
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Manifest MedExcoreTechnology or Integration · 16 December 2025Manifest MedEx and CalMHSA partnered to provide free hospitalization notices to California counties. This collaboration supports healthcare information sharing and care coordination across county behavioral health systems.
• Acentra HealthcoreTechnology or IntegrationCounties delegate concurrent review and authorization to Acentra Health through a participation agreement with CalMHSA. Acentra provides notification of admissions, concurrent clinical documentation reviews, care coordination, denial notices, and utilization reports for psychiatric inpatient and PHF services.
• CertifyOScoreTechnology or IntegrationCalMHSA partnered with CertifyOS, a National Committee for Quality Assurance-certified Credentialing Verification Organization, to ease the costly and time-consuming credentialing process for counties. CertifyOS provides provider monitoring, communication mechanisms, automated notifications, and credentialing committee modules.
• MotivocoreTechnology or IntegrationCalMHSA partners with Motivo to provide virtual clinical supervision through a HIPAA-compliant platform. The partnership helps counties with pre-licensed staff access clinical supervisors, offering triad supervision and group supervision options for staff professional development.
• Sutter HealthcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCalMHSA collaborated with Sutter Health to offer counties comprehensive training on California involuntary holds titled Law and Ethics: Involuntary Treatment and the 5150 Process. Garrett Law LLP conducts live monthly training sessions.
• IDEOcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCalMHSA collaborated with human-centered design firm IDEO to create guidebooks for the county behavioral health community stakeholder planning process as part of statewide behavioral health transformation.
• Homebase and AbtcoreImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerCalMHSA partnered with housing consultants Homebase and Abt to host webinars on BHSA housing requirements, providing counties with practical strategies, models for partnership, and approaches for meeting community needs.
• Electronic Health Network (EHN)coreTechnology or IntegrationCalMHSA Connex is powered by MiNT, an interoperability platform developed by Electronic Health Network (EHN) that facilitates secure healthcare data exchange and connectivity using HL7 FHIR standards.
• RAND CorporationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCalMHSA collaborates with RAND Corporation for rigorous data analysis and impartial evaluation of programs including Full-Service Partnerships, Help@Hand, Psychiatric Bed Needs Analysis, and Funding Public Behavioral Health research.
• UC IrvinecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUC Irvine researchers evaluated the Help@Hand five-year innovation project, finding that over 70% of teens and 80% of adults rated online tools useful for addressing mental health concerns in Help@Hand counties.
• California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCalMHSA administers programs funded by California's Behavioral Health Student Services Act and Behavioral Health Services Act on behalf of DHCS. Programs include presumptive transfer, state hospital beds, innovation projects, and workforce initiatives.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Market position

Competitive moat5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/Calmhsa
• Facebookfacebook.com/profile.php
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/calmhsa

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles18 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about California Mental Health Services Authority