CCBHC National Evaluation vs. Your CCBHC Program Evaluation: What’s the Difference?

There is more than one CCBHC evaluation happening

SAMHSA currently lists the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics Expansion Grant Program national evaluation as an ongoing evaluation running from 2023 through 2028. SAMHSA describes the work as evaluating implementation of the CCBHC model. Its CCBHC evaluations page notes that initial funding for an evaluation of the Expansion Grant Program was provided in September 2023 and that findings have not yet been published.

That evaluation is different from the independent national evaluation of the Section 223 Medicaid CCBHC Demonstration. The Demonstration evaluation is tied to the federal statutory structure of Section 223 and supports evaluation and reporting to Congress.

1. The CCBHC Expansion Grant Program national evaluation

This is a federal, program-level evaluation. Its purpose is to learn about implementation and outcomes across the broader CCBHC Expansion Grant Program rather than evaluate one clinic for its own management purposes.

For a participating grantee, national evaluation activities may create requests for data or other participation requirements. Those activities should be managed carefully, but they are only one component of the clinic's overall evaluation environment.

2. The Section 223 CCBHC Demonstration national evaluation

The Section 223 Demonstration has a separate national evaluation structure. SAMHSA identifies the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation as responsible for the independent national evaluation of the Demonstration. The evaluation examines areas such as implementation, outcomes, cost, quality, scope of services, and the impact of the Demonstration.

This distinction matters because a SAMHSA CCBHC Expansion grantee and a clinic participating in a state's Section 223 Demonstration may operate under overlapping CCBHC requirements while participating in different federal evaluation structures.

3. Your clinic's CCBHC evaluation function

A clinic still needs its own evaluation infrastructure regardless of whether it participates in a national evaluation. The clinic-level function answers different questions: Are grant goals being achieved? Are required data complete and reliable? What do client-level outcomes show? Are quality measures improving? Where are access or implementation gaps? What should leadership change?

This work can include evaluation planning, client-level performance data, SPARS workflows when applicable, sampling methodology, clinic-level quality measures, dashboards, data validation, programmatic reporting, analysis, leadership interpretation, and CQI.

National evaluation and local evaluation serve different users

Does participation in a national evaluation replace an external evaluator?

No. They solve different problems. A national evaluator is conducting a broader federal evaluation. An external or fractional evaluator working with a clinic helps build and operate the clinic's own evaluation system.

That local evaluator may also help the organization respond to national evaluation activities when they apply, but the evaluator's role is broader: keeping required reporting, performance measurement, data quality, analysis, grant evaluation, and CQI connected throughout the year.

What about the FY2026 PDI and IA grants?

The current FY2026 CCBHC-PDI and CCBHC-IA funding opportunities continue the Expansion Grant Program, but organizations should not assume that requirements from an earlier grant cohort automatically apply to a new award. The governing NOFO, Notice of Award, terms and conditions, SAMHSA guidance, and subsequent instructions control.

This is especially important during periods of federal reporting change. Evaluation plans should identify external requirements by source and version rather than rely on institutional memory.

Why the distinction matters operationally

When “the evaluation” is treated as one undefined activity, responsibilities become blurry. National evaluation requests, SAMHSA performance reporting, clinic-level quality measures, grant objectives, internal KPIs, dashboards, and CQI can end up scattered across different teams without a clear owner.

A mature CCBHC evaluation function maps each obligation separately, identifies who owns it, documents the source, and then connects the resulting information where doing so is useful. That makes the clinic more responsive to federal evaluation activities without allowing those activities to substitute for its own learning and performance-management needs.