Shelby County Schools Mental Health Center

If you are looking at Shelby County Schools Mental Health Center in Memphis, TN, the basics worth knowing up front: The facility's programming is outpatient (Outpatient), not residential. This page walks through the questions that tend to matter most to families weighing a specific program.

Care levels at Shelby County Schools Mental Health Center

On care levels specifically: Shelby County Schools Mental Health Center is an outpatient-focused program (Outpatient) — patients live at home or in sober living and attend treatment sessions. This level of care is clinically appropriate for mild-to-moderate substance use disorder, or for patients stepping down from residential. What that means in practice is that matching Shelby County Schools Mental Health Center to the right clinical situation depends on whether you or a loved one needs the level of care this facility actually offers — which is a clinician's judgment, not a facility's sales pitch.

Insurance and payment

On insurance specifically: Payment and insurance specifics for Shelby County Schools Mental Health Center are not fully documented in the SAMHSA registry — a direct admissions conversation is the reliable way to confirm what forms of payment are accepted and at what network-contract level. Before admission, ask the facility's utilization-review team for a written Verification of Benefits — not verbal assurance, which is where most post-treatment financial surprises come from. Also ask for specific plan-level confirmation, not carrier-level (e.g., "your Aetna PPO plan" not just "Aetna").

Before you call

Before admission to Shelby County Schools Mental Health Center, three questions consistently produce the most useful information: (1) which ASAM level of care are you treating me at, and what is the clinical rationale; (2) can you send me a written Verification of Benefits for my specific insurance plan; (3) what is your policy on medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder — specifically, do you continue patients on buprenorphine or methadone during residential programming. If the clinical situation involves opioid use disorder, confirm explicitly whether Shelby County Schools Mental Health Center offers medication-assisted treatment — buprenorphine, methadone, or naltrexone. Programs that do not are operating outside the current standard of care.