Welcome to Santa Cruz County Behavioral Health Services (BHS)

County Behavioral Health Services (BHS) is a Division of the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency (HSA).
At BHS, we care for the whole person with compassion and respect your cultural values and unique needs. Our goal is to help you achieve and maintain long-term health, wellness, and recovery; and to foster healthy families and communities. We aim to provide an integrative service delivery model through strength based, accessible, culturally, and linguistically appropriate services. We work in partnership with community treatment providers to provide outpatient, residential, crisis services, and care coordination care addressing specialty mental health and substance use service needs of Santa Cruz County Medi-Cal beneficiaries and uninsured residents.

The Santa Cruz County Behavioral Health Access Line is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to answer questions about services, arrange appointments, and make referrals. To call the Access Line, dial 800-952-2335.

People who come to BHS may be experiencing complex problems that include mental health, substance use, and physical health challenges. With your input, our care teams work to understand your needs and provide coordinated support.

Client Welcome Packet

Recovery is real. We see it every day. We deeply respect the strength and effort of people in recovery.

To give you an initial orientation about the services available to you, we have carefully assembled this Client Welcome Packet that includes all the information you need to start accessing our network of care.

This information is available in paper form without charge upon request. Paper forms are available at our Behavioral Health Clinics and the County will mail requested paper copies via post office within 5 business days. Please contact your provider or BHS Access at 800-952-2335. For hearing impaired clients: Dial 711 for TDD or send us an email.

The person who is enrolled in the Medi-Cal insurance plan is called a “member”. Santa Cruz County residents who are enrolled in the Medi-Cal insurance plan with Central California Alliance for Health (CCAH, or “the Alliance”) have access to included Medi-Cal benefits related to mental health and substance use disorder services. BHS provides specialty mental health and substance use disorder services to children, youth, transition age, adult and older adults.

Easy access to your health records is a valuable tool for staying on top of your health and making informed decisions about your care. With so many ways to view your information online, it can be hard to know which options are safe and reliable. Here are three tips—and key questions to ask—to help you choose trusted tools and protect your health information. 

  • You have a right to your own health data.
  • You have a right to have corrections added to your health information.
  • You have a right to decide who it's shared with.

Some health apps are safer than others. Be aware that third-party apps will likely not be covered by HIPAA. Most third-party apps will instead fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the protections provided by the FTC Act.

Questions you should ask and think about:

  • Where are you sending your information? Is it by a secure method?
  • Is the Personal Health Record (PHR) or App a member of the CARIN Alliance? (This is a new collaborative focused on the quality and security of patient digital records.).
  • Read the Terms and Conditions of third-party apps carefully before providing them with your personal healthcare information.
    • What health data will this app collect?
    • Will this app collect non-health data from my device, such as my location?
    • Will my data be stored in a de-identified or anonymized form?
    • How will this app use my data?
    • Will this app disclose my data to third parties?
    • Will this app sell my data for any reason, such as advertising or research?
    • Will this app share my data for any reason? If so, with whom? For what purpose?
    • How can I limit this app’s use and disclosure of my data?
    • What security measures does this app use to protect my data?
    • What impact could sharing my data with this app have on others, such as my family members?
    • How can I access my data and correct inaccuracies in data retrieved by this app?
    • Does this app have a process for collecting and responding to user complaints?
    • If I no longer want to use this app, or if I no longer want this app to have access to my health information, how do I terminate the app’s access to my data?
    • What is the app’s policy for deleting my data once I terminate access? Do I have to do more than just delete the app from my device?
    • How does this app inform users of changes that could affect its privacy practices?

HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It is a federal law that sets a national standard to protect medical records and other personal health information.

Organizations that must follow these privacy laws are called covered entities, which include:

  • Health Plans, including health insurance companies, HMOs, company health plans, and certain government programs that pay for health care, such as Medicare and Medicaid.
  • Most Health Care Providers—those that conduct certain business electronically, such as electronically billing your health insurance—including most doctors, clinics, hospitals, psychologists, chiropractors, nursing homes, pharmacies, and dentists.
  • Health Care Clearinghouses—entities that process nonstandard health information they receive from another entity into a standard (i.e., standard electronic format or data content), or vice versa.

Who else needs to follow HIPAA privacy laws?

  • Business associates of covered entities must follow parts of the HIPAA regulations. 
    • Contractors, subcontractors, and other outside persons and companies that are not employees of a covered entity will need to have access to your health information when providing services to the covered entity. We call these entities “business associates.” Examples of business associates include: Companies that help your doctors get paid for providing health care, including billing companies and companies that process your health care claims
    • Companies that help administer health plans
    • People like outside lawyers, accountants, and IT specialists
    • Companies that store or destroy medical records
  • Most Health Care Providers—those that conduct certain business electronically, such as electronically billing your health insurance—including most doctors, clinics, hospitals, psychologists, chiropractors, nursing homes, pharmacies, and dentists.
  • Health Care Clearinghouses—entities that process nonstandard health information they receive from another entity into a standard (i.e., standard electronic format or data content), or vice versa.

Organizations that do not fall into the above categories are not covered entities and may not be subject to HIPAA regulations. In other words, they do not have to follow the same privacy laws to protect your data.

HIPAA Frequently Asked Questions

Federal Trade Commission information on mobile privacy and security

Filing a Complaint or Reporting

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforces the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules, and the Patient Safety Act and Rule.

If you believe your health information privacy has been breached or an app has used your data inappropriately, you can file a complaint online or in writing.

Patient Access API Member Education and Resources