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Indiana once had some of the cheapest electric bills. Not anymore.
Aaron Cooper, chief commercial officer, and Greg Ellis, plant manager, during a tour of AES Indiana's Harding Street plant in August. (Credit: Ryan Martin)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Indiana relied on coal for almost all of its power for years, but now the state is in the middle of a complicated — and costly — transition to new sources of energy. In a new series of articles, State Affairs is examining the impacts of state policy and how Indiana's energy transition is affecting residents. This is the first in that series.
The financial impact of Indiana’s energy transition can be found on Lucille Moore’s monthly electric bill.
Moore, 89, said she’s been meeting with other senior citizens in her Indianapolis neighborhood and at her church. They’re all dealing with the same problem: Ballooning electric bills are claiming more and more of their fixed incomes.
And AES Indiana, which services Moore and a half million other customers in the Indianapolis area, is now trying to take an even bigger bite starting next year.
That led Moore to attend a public hearing inside the city’s Central Library last month where she looked into the eyes of the members of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC), the state agency that will decide if AES can raise prices. Moore urged them to say no.
“The increase is really hard on seniors,” Moore told them. “Please think of the seniors, because you’re going to be there, too.”
The proposed increases aren’t unique to Indianapolis. In northern Indiana, NIPSCO recently received state approval to raise prices for about 468,000 people. Indiana Michigan Power is seeking a rate increase, too, for the more than 600,000 customers in mostly northeastern Indiana. And CenterPoint Energy, which serves 140,000 people in southwest Indiana, is wanting customers to pay more as part of an infrastructure request.
Their requests come as the average price of electricity in Indiana has already jumped nearly 35% between 2012 and 2022, according to a State Affairs analysis of federal and state data, while the national average grew by just 19%. Average residential bills in Indiana closely tracked the rise.
While Indiana once boasted having some of the most affordable electricity in the country, that’s no longer the case. Indiana was ranked 14th as recently as 2012; as of April last year, the state dropped to 31st — trailing nearby states Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee.
And Hoosiers hoping to find relief anytime soon will be disappointed by what the most recent state forecasts show. The cost of electricity among Indiana’s five investor-owned electric utilities is expected to continue to rise through 2025 to the tune of 30%.
So why have Indiana’s electricity bills become so costly? And is there any hope that renewable energy sources will one day provide relief? Those are some of the questions that customers, lawmakers and utility observers are trying to answer during Indiana’s energy transition.
The story begins with coal.
Coal provided almost all of Indiana’s energy
Indiana burned coal for years. It was close by and it was cheap.
In the early 2000s, coal accounted for well more than 90% of the energy generated in Indiana. As a top 10 coal producer, the state benefited from the plentiful supply of a then-inexpensive resource.
But coal wasn’t actually inexpensive, as states would later learn. There are massive consequences to public health and the environment. As policymakers around the country began to comprehend that, they started shifting to new resources — especially as the federal government strengthened environmental regulations that created new costs to run coal plants.
Indiana, though, hung on. As recently as 2014, coal still accounted for about 75% of the state’s energy.
Why? It depends who you ask.
One reason may be because of how many jobs were tied to the coal industry. Even in 2021, coal production in Indiana was responsible for more than 5,000 jobs, according to a 2022 report from West Virginia University. Coal also served as a fertile political battleground — then-Gov. Mike Pence, for example, tried to fight the Obama administration's plans to restrict carbon emissions in 2014.
Coal has now become some of the most expensive energy in the country. Yet Hoosiers — as a result of state policy in reaction to increased federal regulation — have already poured billions into coal-fired power plants. In some cases, they will pay for plants that are shelved while also paying for new sources of energy. It’s like paying two mortgages for one house.
Kerwin Olson, executive director of the consumer watchdog group Citizens Action Coalition, said Indiana lawmakers should have followed the lead of other states.
Many state legislatures, including Indiana’s, were discussing the futures of their energy mixes during the Obama presidency. Some mandated that utility companies acquire a certain percentage of their energy from renewable sources, Olson said.
“We were saying this: We know these coal plants are going to be obsolete in the next 10 to 20 years, investing this amount of money in those coal plants is going to condemn ratepayers to billions of dollars of stranded costs in the future, at the same time that these things will be no longer cost effective,” Olson told State Affairs. “We're on the record saying that almost 20 years ago.”
Indiana lawmakers and utility companies, though, largely decided against seeking alternatives. Instead, they required Indiana customers to pay to add pollution controls on coal plants — an exact cost that is difficult to quantify but is pegged by the Citizens Action Coalition as more than $12 billion.
“We believe it's the policy decisions that the state made that led to these escalations and costs,” Olson said. “We decided that the way to comply with these things was to retrofit these massively expensive coal plants. And now here we are in this conundrum.”
Other costs of Indiana’s energy transition
Olson’s skepticism is fueled by the five big utility companies’ profit motive.
Electric utilities in Indiana, just as in most of the rest of the country, function as monopolies within their service territories. The capital costs to generate and deliver electricity are so vast that most policymakers say it would be too burdensome for consumers to support more than one provider in each service territory.
The five major utility companies, which are for-profit companies owned by investors, are generally able to pass along to customers the costs of generating and delivering electricity. On top of that, the companies receive a certain amount of money that is used to pay for the cost of debt and to generate profits. That’s known as the rate of return.
Consumer advocates like Olson often point out that the five major utility companies in Indiana are incentivized to seek the costliest capital projects because not only are the bills picked up by Indiana customers but the return to investors also grows larger. (In other words: Big, expensive coal plants offer a good return for investors, Olson said.)
Because the utilities as monopolies lack competition, states create regulatory commissions that are tasked with approving most decisions made by the companies.
Ryan Hadley, a former staff employee of Indiana’s commission who now serves as executive director of the Indiana Office of Energy Development, acknowledged some of the challenges identified by the Citizens Action Coalition but thinks the reasons for Indiana’s inflated energy prices are more complex.
Yes, utility companies were confronted with a choice in the early and mid-2000s: Shut down relatively new coal plants as part of Indiana’s energy transition, or spend money to ensure they were compliant with federal regulations.
“The choice was just tough to make, but I'm not sure that there really was going to be an outcome in which customers were going to avoid any sort of rate increases,” said Hadley, who also pointed to other reasons why Indiana’s electricity bills have grown.
The cost to comply with federal environmental regulations went up, Hadley noted, but so, too, did the cost of using coal as a fuel source. And as Indiana tries to play catch-up with new forms of energy, the new costs aren’t being spread around a bunch of new customers.
“Ever since the Great Recession, we’ve had pretty much flat or very little load growth. So when you think of these investments, not only in just replacing and updating our system, but adding these new capital investments, you're doing that over flat sales and flat growth so you have more dollars being spread over about the same amount of electricity sales,” Hadley said. “So that results in customers paying more than what they did in the past.”
And at the time that Indiana doubled down on coal, other states benefited from hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, which drove down the cost of using gas. States that were reliant on gas came out on top; whereas states that relied almost exclusively on coal did not.
Indiana customers lost their competitive advantage.
Moving away from coal
Coal still accounted for about half of Indiana’s energy mix in 2021.
Nationally, the number is closer to 22%, according to the IURC. And Indiana trailed only Missouri and Texas in its usage of coal for electricity.
Still, Indiana’s major utility companies are now moving away from coal. It may be happening a lot later than many wanted, but it’s happening.
Only one of the five major utility companies is planning to burn coal after 2030. Twenty-eight coal-fired units were retired between 2012-21, according to the IURC. Another 21 units are planned for retirement by 2035.
And the state’s reliance on coal dropped by roughly 25 percentage points over the previous decade, according to a State Affairs review of data maintained by the IURC.
Wind and solar grew by a combined 5.5 percentage points during that time, showing an increased appetite for renewable energy. Currently, Indiana trails only Texas, California and New York in the volume of wind, solar and battery storage capacity that's in development, according to a 2023 American Clean Power Association report.
Hadley, of the state Office of Energy Development, noted that Indiana is operating just under 13,000 megawatts of coal right now. Based on what’s been filed to state regulators, Indiana is forecasted to have an amount close to that — 12,000 megawatts — of wind and solar by 2028.
But that’s another way that Indiana’s energy transition is showing up on residents’ electric bills, at least in the short term.
“We’re in the process of retiring our older coal-fired units, and we have to replace them with something,” said Doug Gotham, director of the Purdue University-based State Utility Forecasting Group. “And that something costs money.”
But as Indiana utilities eye a future dominated by renewables and, hopefully, storage technology, they first are moving fast into another fossil fuel: natural gas.
As coal declined, gas accounted for the majority of new energy produced in Indiana. What accounted for just 11% of the state's energy mix in 2012 surpassed 32% in 2020, before dipping slightly in 2021.
Natural gas is typically cheaper than coal, utility experts say, and it’s easier to manage for utility companies.
Just look at AES Indiana (formerly, Indiana Power and Light), for example. The company hopes to be the first investor-owned utility company in Indiana to completely exit coal and among the big five utilities is providing the least-expensive residential electricity bills right now.
Gas as a ‘transition fuel’ for AES
The history of the Harding Street power plant on Indianapolis’ south side dates back to the late 1920s. More recently, some of its units burned coal for decades to produce power.
That is, until 2015 and 2016. That’s when AES converted the plant’s units into gas instead of building a new gas plant.
“The cost of the conversion is very small compared to the cost of building anything new,” Aaron Cooper, AES chief commercial officer, told State Affairs before a tour of the facility. “And I'm not saying insignificant, but I'm saying relatively small compared to building something brand new.”
The savings are found in extending the life of the plant. The original coal units were estimated to run for 30 years, according to Greg Ellis, who manages the plant, but now units that are more than 50-years-old are still providing use. And Ellis estimates that at least 90% of the original equipment was reused.
“You're extending the life of the equipment that the customers have already paid for,” Ellis said. “We're buying time to allow technologies to mature without throwing a ton of money at stuff that will be replaced very soon.”
It was the first conversion for AES. Next the utility is looking to retire two coal units at the Petersburg plant in Pike County and convert them into gas.
Beyond the cost savings of using gas over coal, utility experts say the gas units typically can start and stop quickly with no consequence to the machinery. That’s far more difficult with coal units.
To put it simply, a typical gas unit can be turned on, ramped up rapidly and run close to whatever level of energy is needed to meet demand at that particular time. So while an older coal unit would need to run at a high level just in case customers ended up requiring a bunch of energy on a given day, gas units enable utility companies to simply wait and flip the switch when needed.
It’s important to know that not all gas units are the same. Some are designed to work around-the-clock to meet the everyday demands of customers, and others are designed to run only during peak energy times. And some run efficiently; others do not.
Either way, AES is using gas as a “transition fuel” to get away from coal, Cooper said, while working toward an expansion of renewable energy.
Utilities still need something outside of renewables for the times when it’s neither windy nor sunny. Long term, battery storage is believed to be a solution (all excess energy generated by wind and solar could be stored until needed). While the utilities wait for the technology to develop, they will continue to use gas.
Danielle McGrath, president of the Indiana Energy Association, said some reports suggest Indiana utilities could rely on gas for another 40 to 50 years: “That's simply because the other technologies are not at a scale and availability yet,” McGrath said.
But that line of thinking concerns Olson, of the consumer group Citizens Action Coalition. The group regularly criticizes Indiana’s continued reliance on fossil fuels — and he’s calling Indiana’s “dash to gas” a parallel to the state’s lingering reliance on coal.
“This is the same mistake that we made … when we doubled down on coal plants even though reasonable people understood where the energy markets were going,” Olson said. “There’s a good possibility these things are going to be obsolete in 10 years.”
‘When will it be enough?’
There’s no question Indiana is in the thick of an energy transition. Some observers say it began in earnest for lawmakers and policymakers in 2018 — around the time NIPSCO in northern Indiana shocked the public by announcing plans to exit coal and save $4 billion.
The next year, lawmakers created the 21st Century Energy Task Force to analyze and guide the state’s transition. Four years of work led to HEA 1007 during the last legislative session. It essentially serves as a blueprint for utilities, regulators, watchdog groups and other stakeholders.
Yet even as lawmakers and utilities can look down the horizon and see cheaper, cleaner energy sources, the truth is Indiana is still burning an above-average amount of fossil fuels and Hoosiers’ electric bills are still growing more expensive at a rate that outpaces the national average.
AES says the proposed rate increases would pay for growing maintenance and operational costs caused by inflation, as well as investments into reliability and infrastructure.
To accomplish that, the company is trying to increase the monthly fixed charge, which appears on your bill no matter the energy usage. At the same time, AES also wants to boost the rate of return — the amount that’s typically used to pay toward the costs of debt and to generate profits — from 9.99% to 10.6%.
On the same night that Indianapolis resident Lucille Moore spoke out against the proposed rate increase from AES Indiana, 15 others also voiced their concerns.
Among those in attendance was State Sen. Jean Breaux, D-Indianapolis, who also serves on the Senate utilities committee.
She urged the IURC to be sensitive to how the price increases are harming people in her district.
“I just have to ask: When will it stop?” Breaux asked the commission. “When will it be enough?”
Contact Ryan Martin on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or at [email protected].
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Header image: Aaron Cooper, chief commercial officer, and Greg Ellis, plant manager, during a tour of AES Indiana's Harding Street plant in August. (Credit: Ryan Martin)
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Eric Doden says school district consolidation is ‘death knell’ for rural Indiana
Republican gubernatorial candidate Eric Doden is calling on the Indiana Chamber of Commerce to end its support for school district consolidation in rural Indiana.
In a letter sent today, the Fort Wayne businessman labeled the business group’s position as “damaging.”
“While the stated aims of this position are laudable, the message sent to our small towns and rural communities is damaging,” Doden wrote. “Proposing to do away with small public school districts through consolidation will be seen as a death knell for the millions of Hoosiers who live in small towns and rural communities.”
For years, the Indiana Chamber has advocated for fewer school districts across Indiana. A 2017 study commissioned through Ball State University identified worse educational outcomes for students in smaller districts in several categories, including scores for state standardized testing and the SAT, as well as the pass rates for Advanced Placement classes.
The Indiana Chamber re-upped its position last month when it released its long term economic development plan. Among the listed policies was a goal to “reduce by half the number of very small school districts with enrollments below 2,000 students to provide much stronger educational opportunities for rural students and communities.”
More than half of Indiana’s school districts have fewer than 2,000 students.
In a statement to State Affairs, Indiana Chamber President and CEO Kevin Brinegar said the state is providing a “two-tiered educational system” depending on income and ZIP code.
“Hoosier students should not be limited academically solely due to where they live. And that’s the case now in some of the smaller school districts where students are not afforded the opportunity to take a full array of STEM, Advanced Placement or college preparation courses,” Brinegar said in the statement. “The Chamber’s stance on smaller school district consolidation is rooted in wanting to lift up young Hoosiers in these rural communities, so they have a better chance at prosperity by properly preparing them for the state’s current and future job opportunities.”
The statement also contained a specific response to Doden’s criticism.
“We would be happy to sit down with Mr. Doden and go through the research and show him why we have adopted this position for the betterment of the academic and economic opportunities for our young people,” Brinegar said in the statement. “The status quo that Mr. Doden is championing has and will continue to leave small communities, schools and students behind. That’s not acceptable.”
But whereas the business group sees consolidation as one way to improve life in rural Indiana, Doden sees the opposite.
“Across our state it’s easy to see the remnants of a school consolidation push that began in the 1950s,” Doden wrote in his letter. “Too many towns that lost their local school to consolidation dried up and were virtually swept from the maps while other towns kept their schools and their identities. These communities had a better opportunity to survive.”
Doden also cited one of his policy proposals, which would redirect $100 million in state money toward small towns — in an effort to address declines in populations and quality of life.
“With local leadership and local control, we can revitalize our small towns and hometowns with a fraction of the investment we give away in the form of incentives,” Doden wrote.
Doden addressed the letter to Vanessa Green Sinders, who will replace Brinegar as the Indiana Chamber’s leader. Her tenure will begin in January, so she was unavailable to provide comment to State Affairs. Either way, the Indiana Chamber’s members are the ones who suggest policy positions for the board of directors to approve before each legislative session.
In addition to Doden, the crowded Republican field for governor includes U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, former Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch and former Attorney General Curtis Hill.
Jennifer McCormick, the former state superintendent of public education, has emerged as the leading Democratic candidate. Instead of school district consolidation, the state should reevaluate its expansion of school choice vouchers, McCormick has previously said.
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Header image: Eric Doden, 2024 Republican candidate for governor of Indiana (Credit: Eric Doden for Indiana Governor/Facebook)
Attorney general faces misconduct allegations in handling of high-profile abortion case
The Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission today filed a formal complaint against state Attorney General Todd Rokita that alleges three violations of attorney professional conduct rules.
Rokita faces official allegations that he committed professional misconduct with his public comments about Dr. Caitlin Bernard after she provided an abortion to a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim last summer.
Rokita is defending his actions, saying that state confidentiality laws shouldn’t apply to him because Bernard was the first to talk in the news media about the girl’s treatment. It could take months before the state Supreme Court decides whether Rokita will face any punishment.
What’s Happening
The commission didn’t ask for a specific punishment against Rokita, asking simply that he be “disciplined as warranted for professional misconduct” by the state Supreme Court.
Commission Executive Director Adrienne Meiring filed the complaint that focuses on actions by Rokita and his office between early July 2022 and Nov. 30, 2022, when the attorney general’s office filed a misconduct complaint against Bernard with the state Medical Licensing Board.
Bernard drew national attention in the days after a July 1, 2022, story by The Indianapolis Star quoting her about the young girl’s abortion just days after the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The complaint against Rokita highlights his July 13 appearance on a Fox News program, during which he said he would investigate Bernard’s actions and called her an “abortion activist acting as a doctor — with a history of failing to report.”
It also points to his office’s unusual action of publicly releasing on July 13 a letter to Gov. Eric Holcomb that named Bernard in seeking records from two state agencies and a July 14 press release from his office about the investigation.
The complaint alleges Rokita’s actions violated confidentiality requirements of pending medical licensing investigations under state law and by doing so Rokita “caused irreparable harm to Dr. Bernard’s reputational and professional image.”
Rokita responded Monday with a legal filing saying that the confidentiality requirements shouldn’t apply to him because Bernard had already gone public about the girl’s medical treatment.
Rokita also argued that “The Attorney General, an elected official who answers to the public, has a duty to keep the public informed of the Office’s actions and decisions.”
The state Medical Licensing Board voted 5-1 in May to reprimand Bernard and fine her $3,000 for violating patient privacy laws. The board, however, voted unanimously to reject allegations from the attorney general’s office that Bernard violated state law by not reporting the child abuse that led to the girl’s pregnancy to Indiana authorities and did not issue any restrictions on Bernard’s medical license.
Why It Matters
The Disciplinary Commission’s complaint carries the potential of forcing the Republican attorney general from office.
State law requires that the attorney general be “duly licensed to practice law in Indiana.” The state Supreme Court, which has the final say over attorney disciplinary matters, has wide discretion, with options all the way up to permanently stripping an attorney of his law license.
Rokita won the Republican nomination for attorney general in 2020 over then-Attorney General Curtis Hill after Hill faced allegations that he drunkenly groped four women at a party celebrating the end of the 2018 legislative session.
The Supreme Court suspended Hill’s law license for 30 days, saying that “by clear and convincing evidence that [Hill] committed the criminal act of battery.” The court rejected the hearing officer’s recommendation of a longer suspension that could have forced him from office. Hill is now seeking the Republican 2024 nomination for governor.
Rokita has sought to burnish his anti-abortion and national profile with the Bernard case. Besides challenging Bernard’s medical license, his office last week filed a lawsuit against the doctor’s employer, Indiana University Health, alleging it violated federal law by allowing Bernard to disclose information about the Ohio girl’s treatment. The girl’s mother brought her to Indiana to receive abortion drugs because an Ohio ban on abortions after six weeks had taken effect after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last summer.
What’s Next?
Rokita is entitled to defend himself with a hearing before a judicial officer appointed by the Supreme Court, who would then submit a recommended punishment to the court.
In Hill’s case, it took about 14 months from the time that the disciplinary complaint was filed against him for the court’s five justices to receive the case and make their decision.
Rokita’s defense lawyers include two from the Washington, D.C., firm Schaerr-Jaffe. The firm also assisted the attorney general’s office with the case against Bernard under a contract allowing it to bill the state $550 an hour for work by the firm’s attorneys.
“This is a complaint against the official duties of the Attorney General and is an attack against his official capacity, so this is paid by the office,” Rokita’s office said.
Rokita isn’t backing down in the political battle, either, as he released a statement Monday calling himself “a passionate fighter” who “is beating back the culture of death, grievance and transanity being pushed by radicals in workplaces, schools, media and government.”
Democrats argue Rokita is using the Bernard case “to further his own personal political ambitions.”
“Todd Rokita’s actions toward Dr. Caitlin Bernard over the past year brought shame and ridicule upon our state,” Indiana Democratic Chairman Mike Schmuhl said in a statement. “Now, he is starting to see the consequences of making baseless claims regarding a medical professional on national television.”
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Tom Davies is a Statehouse reporter for State Affairs Pro Indiana. Reach him at [email protected] or on X at @TomDaviesIND.
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Header image: Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita speaks during the America First Agenda Summit organized by America First Policy Institute. (Photo by Oliver Contreras/SIPA USA)(Sipa via AP Images)
Sen. Jon Ford confirms move to coal industry group upon resignation
Republican Sen. Jon Ford of Terre Haute confirmed Friday that he is resigning from the Legislature to become leader of an association that promotes the coal industry and other fossil fuel producers in Indiana. Ford told State Affairs that he will join Reliable Energy this fall after his Senate resignation takes effect Oct. 16. “I’ll …
Indiana’s 988 hotline is helping people in crisis or struggling with thoughts of suicide
The Gist
Indiana’s 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is already receiving more than 3,000 calls per month a little more than a year after its launch, according to the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, and more than 90% of the calls are being answered by trained Hoosiers.
The state agency provided an update this week in part to raise awareness for National Suicide Prevention Month.
What’s Happening
The 988 hotline is a free resource for people who are experiencing a crisis. Callers can receive a supportive ear on the call as well as resources to help.
That’s why state officials want to have as many calls as possible answered by people who live in Indiana. While the calls are being backstopped by people working nationally, the people working in Indiana’s five call centers can more easily connect callers to in-person resources to help with whatever is contributing to the crisis, such as a lack of food or housing.
Indiana’s answer rate of more than 90% since November is leading the nation, according to state officials.
A caller’s average wait time is about 10 seconds, said Kara Biro, Family and Social Services Administration state director of behavioral health crisis care, and the average call lasts 12 to 20 minutes.
The hotline, launched in Indiana last July, is just the first step in a larger vision. The state is steadily building a three-part crisis system that also includes mobile crisis teams to respond to calls for help and crisis stabilization units where people can go for up to 23 hours at a time to receive care.
“We are marching toward a time where individuals in crisis, regardless of day, time or location, have someone to call, someone who can respond, and a safe place to help,” Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Dr. Daniel Rusyniak said.
Why It Matters
Indiana has long struggled with an above average number of suicide deaths, lower life expectancy driven by excessive substance use and a rapidly increasing number of drug overdoses.
As a result, Indiana is persistently ranked as one of the worst states by the nonprofit Mental Health America when it comes to mental health treatment.
But, almost quietly, change appears to be on the horizon. And maybe even hope.
During the last legislative session, Indiana lawmakers poured $100 million in new money over two years into mental health treatment.
That amounted to less than half of what experts say is needed to fully address the crisis. At least $130.6 million per year would be needed, according to a 2022 estimate by the state.
But an additional $50 million per year was still celebrated by Gov. Eric Holcomb and mental health advocates — who all noted that the three-part crisis system will not be built overnight anyway.
And that’s on top of the more than $100 million that the federal government sent Indiana to kickstart the creation of the three-part crisis system.
What’s Next
In June, state officials awarded a combined $57 million in federal American Rescue Plan dollars to community mental health centers in 15 counties to expand the services they provide to people in crisis.
Stabilization units, in particular, were the focus of the grants.
“These are physical locations — a safe place for help — where individuals in crisis will be stabilized and connected with follow up care,” Jay Chaudhary, director of the state’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction, said at the time. “Too many Hoosiers today in behavioral health crises end up in a jail or in the emergency department.”
Meanwhile, the Family and Social Services Administration is on track to apply for what’s called a Medicaid demonstration program. If approved, mental health providers would receive greater Medicaid reimbursements, which advocates say would make it far easier to implement and expand the services they can provide to Hoosiers who need mental health treatment. The state is facing a March 2024 deadline to apply, officials confirmed this week.
And the state is still hoping for statewide coverage of the three-part crisis system by 2027.
As for the 988 hotline, state officials are hoping to increase accessibility to people who don’t speak English or who are deaf or hard of hearing.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which has trained listeners standing by and ready to help. Visit 988indiana.org for crisis services or for more information. Visit the Indiana Suicide Prevention website for resources.
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Header image: Indiana’s 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline launched last year and is already receiving more than 3,000 calls per month. (Credit: Indiana Family and Social Services Administration)