The Arizona Department of Administration lifted a stay that had halted a multibillion-dollar contract for behavioral health services in Maricopa County, following a recommendation by an administrative law judge.

Just like diabetes and hypertension, mental illness is an ailment that is treatable — and if untreated can cause morbidity and mortality.

This week's most outstanding quips, gibes and utterances from Arizona's political scene.

Gov. Jan Brewer on Oct. 20 proposed a policy shift that would steer the mental health care of thousands of Arizona residents to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System and away from state-contracted private care managers. The recommendation came ...

The number of seriously mentally ill people in Maricopa County has exploded in recent years and is expected to grow another 45 percent by 2015, according to state estimates.

The lawsuit that led to the creation of the modern behavioral health care system in Maricopa County has created what many experts say is an artificial set of standards that ignores the real needs of patients. But confusion and disagreement over ways to improve the system have delayed the kind of meaningful reform that almost everyone in the health care community recognizes as necessary.

Magellan Health Services has adopted a slogan since taking over Maricopa County's behavioral health care system two years ago: "Getting Better All the Time." The reforms promised by the Maryland-based company in the months before taking control of the system were put on hold while the company tried to rebound from the loss of medical records, a critical audit by the court and a series of well-publicized murders committed by untreated patients.