CCBHC NJ: Locations, Eligibility, and Crisis Care

Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics in NJ are nonprofit providers that must treat anyone who walks in for mental health care, addiction treatment, or a crisis, regardless of insurance or ability to pay. Seven state-certified organizations run 17 sites across New Jersey, and another 14 clinics operate on federal SAMHSA grants. Together they serve more than 50,000 residents a year.¹²

What a CCBHC Will Do for You

Every certified clinic in the state has to deliver, or arrange, the same core set of services. That means one door for problems that used to require calling four different agencies.

Round-the-clock crisis care, including mobile crisis teams that come to you and short-term crisis stabilization.
Screening and diagnosis for mental health conditions, substance use, and suicide or overdose risk.
Outpatient therapy, psychiatry, and medication-assisted treatment for opioid and alcohol use disorders.
A treatment plan built with you (and your family, if you want them involved).
Primary care screening for conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and infectious disease, usually through a partner clinic.
Case management that coordinates housing, social services, and criminal-justice contacts.
Psychiatric rehabilitation, including supported employment and education, and partial care programs.
Peer support from specialists in recovery themselves, plus family navigators.
Specialized care for active-duty service members and veterans.³⁴

Federal rules also set the clock on how fast you should be seen. An emergency or crisis gets an immediate response. An urgent case must receive an initial evaluation within one business day. A routine request must be scheduled within ten business days. A comprehensive evaluation must be finished within 60 calendar days of intake.⁵

Cost and Who Qualifies

You do not need Medicaid or commercial insurance to be seen. The clinics are required to treat people regardless of insurance status or ability to pay, and several use sliding-fee scales for uninsured clients. Oaks Integrated Care, for example, offers a sliding fee for its CCBHC services in Mercer County.⁶

Behind the scenes, certified clinics bill Medicaid through a monthly bundled rate rather than per-appointment fees, which is what lets them keep the door open to walk-ins and cover services that a fee-for-service system would not pay for.⁴

Where to Find a CCBHC in New Jersey

Seven organizations hold state certification. Their sites, by county:⁷

AtlantiCare Behavioral Health — Hammonton (Atlantic County).
Care Plus NJ — Paramus, Rochelle Park, and Fair Lawn (Bergen County).
Catholic Charities, Diocese of Trenton — two sites in Trenton and one in Hamilton (Mercer County).
CPC Integrated Health — Red Bank, Aberdeen, Freehold, and Eatontown (Monmouth County).
Northwest Essex Community Healthcare Network — Belleville (Essex County).
Oaks Integrated Care — Trenton and Lawrenceville (Mercer County).
Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care — New Brunswick, Monmouth Junction, and Edison (Middlesex County).

In Newark, Integrity House has run a CCBHC at 1091 Broad Street since 2020, funded by a four-year, $4 million SAMHSA grant awarded in December 2022. It focuses on children and adolescents, veterans, and people with opioid use disorders in the greater Newark area.⁸ Thirteen other SAMHSA-grant-funded CCBHCs operate elsewhere in the state, bringing the total number of clinics using the CCBHC model to 21.⁹

A Closer Look at the Larger Providers

CPC Integrated Health, founded in 1960, is the largest nonprofit integrated care provider in Monmouth and Northern Ocean Counties and was the first CCBHC certified in New Jersey. It serves more than 12,000 clients a year across seven locations on a $40 million annual budget, and cut average wait times from first contact to first evaluation by more than 50 percent after certification. It also runs a mobile outreach van and a special education school for students ages five through 21.¹⁰¹¹

Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care is the only behavioral health system in the state that is part of a medical school. Its three Middlesex County clinics joined the CCBHC program in July 2017. Rutgers UBHC provides 24/7 emergency evaluations, inpatient care for children and adolescents, school-based programs, and a HUD-VASH residential program serving more than 180 homeless veterans.¹²¹³

Northwest Essex Community Healthcare Network, operating since 1958, opened its CCBHC in Belleville in January 2018 and launched the first ambulatory detox program in Essex County. The Belleville site is open seven days a week with evening and weekend hours, offers 24-hour crisis screening, and provides bilingual services in Spanish along with translation for other languages.¹⁴¹⁵

Oaks Integrated Care runs 24/7 crisis stabilization and ambulatory detoxification for opiates, alcohol, and benzodiazepines at its Trenton and Lawrenceville sites, and provides primary care screening through a partnership with the Henry J. Austin Health Center.⁶

Care Plus NJ operates the three Bergen County sites and holds two federal expansion grants on top of its state certification. It has led the state’s push into school-based behavioral health.²

If You Are in a Crisis

The 24/7 crisis service is one of the most important reasons the CCBHC model exists. Mobile crisis teams typically pair a licensed behavioral health clinician with a peer support specialist and respond in the community instead of routing people through emergency rooms or law enforcement. They can be dispatched through 911, through the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or by direct referral from a provider or first responder.¹⁶

988 call centers handle the phone contact, but they do not send anyone or provide follow-up care. That work goes to CCBHCs and their partners. Nationally, 29 percent of CCBHCs added mobile crisis response and 16 percent added crisis stabilization services after becoming certified, and some have reported diverting more than half of individuals from jail through mobile response and coordination.¹⁷

In New Jersey, Oaks Integrated Care provides 24/7 in-person and telephonic crisis stabilization across its Mercer County locations,⁶ and Northwest Essex offers 24-hour crisis screening at its Belleville site.¹⁴

School-Based Access for Families

In March 2026, Care Plus NJ opened the “Lion’s HUB” at the Paterson Charter School for Science and Technology, a school-based access center for students from kindergarten through 12th grade, their families, and school staff. It runs on a walk-in model: no appointments, no referrals, no wait times, and no insurance barrier. Licensed clinicians and care coordinators are embedded on campus during and after school hours, including evenings. Students whose needs exceed on-site care are connected to the broader Care Plus NJ system for outpatient therapy, medication management, and peer support.¹⁸

The Lion’s HUB won an NJBIZ Healthcare Hero award for innovation in behavioral health in May 2026.¹⁹ A pending bill, Senate Bill S4413 introduced in June 2026, would allocate $44 million for Governor Sherrill’s SPARK initiative to fund on-site mental health professionals in K-12 schools and link them to community-based behavioral health providers. The legislation does not name CCBHCs, but the provider network it envisions overlaps with the one already in place.²⁰

What Changed in 2025 and 2026

New Jersey joined the federal CCBHC demonstration in 2017. The demonstration period ended for the state on September 30, 2025, and the enhanced 65 percent federal Medicaid match dropped to the standard 50 percent, leaving an estimated $10 million funding gap for the remaining nine months of the fiscal year.⁹

The state initially tried to move the clinics under its existing 1115 Medicaid waiver, but CMS rejected that path and told New Jersey to file a State Plan Amendment. CMS approved that amendment (TN 25-0017) on March 27, 2026, with an effective date of October 1, 2025. It locks in the reimbursement structure, which combines monthly bundled payments, cost outlier payments, and quality incentive payments.²¹ The amendment is also meant to open certification beyond the original seven providers, giving other behavioral health organizations a path into the network.⁹

Care Plus NJ testified before the New Jersey Assembly Budget Committee in March 2026 that 23,000 individuals could lose access to care without sustained state and Medicaid investment in the model.²

What the Model Has Delivered

The original seven demonstration clinics served 18,130 people in their first year and 19,101 in their second.²²

Rutgers UBHC saw patient volume rise 65 percent, from 3,300 to over 5,000 individuals, in its first year as a CCBHC. The number of people receiving medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorders tripled, and average wait times for a first appointment dropped from 21 days to same-day or next-day access.¹³

Across the demonstration sites, three clinics reported drops in psychiatric hospitalizations, with one region seeing a 65 percent decline. Two clinics reported emergency room screening decreases of 26 and 33 percent. Sites also expanded medication-assisted treatment by 30 to 100 percent in the share of eligible clients receiving it.²²

1
NJ Department of Human Services. CCBHC Provider Resources
2
Care Plus NJ. Care Plus NJ Testifies Before the NJ Assembly Budget Committee
3
SAMHSA. CCBHC Certification Criteria
4
NJ Department of Human Services. NJ CCBHC Policy Manual, Version 1.0
5
SAMHSA. CCBHC Criteria Compliance Checklist
6
Oaks Integrated Care. Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic
7
NJ DMHAS. NJ DMHAS CCBHCs Sites Approved
8
Integrity House. Integrity House Secures Grant to Expand Newark CCBHC
9
NJ Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies. 2025 Advocacy Piece
10
CPC Integrated Health. CPC Integrated Health Home Page
11
CPC Integrated Health. Our Team
12
Rutgers UBHC. Clinical Overview
13
U.S. Congress. Testimony of Rutgers UBHC on CCBHC Demonstration
14
Northwest Essex Community Healthcare Network. CCBHC Brochure
15
Patch. Northwest Essex Opens Certified Health Clinic in Essex County
16
Center for Health Care Strategies. Mobile Crisis Teams for Adults With Complex Needs
17
National Council for Mental Wellbeing. CCBHCs and Crisis Response Systems
18
ROI-NJ. Care Plus NJ Partners With Paterson Charter School to Open Lion’s HUB
19
Care Plus NJ. Lion’s HUB Honored as NJBIZ Healthcare Hero
20
NJ Legislature. Senate Bill S4413
21
Medicaid.gov. NJ SPA TN 25-0017
22
NJ Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies. CCBHC Impact Flyer