On Tuesday, Georgia House overwhelmingly passed a wide range of mental health bills, including tighter financial requirements for the state’s Medicaid managed care company.
This story was also published in Georgia Health News
House Bill 1013 is currently heading to the Senate, but its path is less certain. Speaker of the House David Ralston rarely appeared on the podium to address his chamber of commerce prior to voting. This bill puts lives at risk. “
Blue Ridge Republican Ralston said it was “totally unacceptable” for Georgia to rank the mental health system at the bottom, which Georgia called the top state of business in the United States.
The bill, approved by a vote of 169-3, requires that health plans cover mental health and substance use treatment at the same level as physical condition. It also modifies the protocol for involuntary involvement of persons with mental illness, creates incentives for training mental health professionals, and promotes “joint response” teams with state police and mental health professionals.
The bill also states that the state’s definition of “medical need” for mental health treatment should not be determined by insurance companies, but should come from standard clinical protocols.
Lead sponsor Todd Jones State Assembly (R-Cumming) mentioned the fight against his son’s mental illness in a speech introducing Houseville 1013.
Justin experienced six years of mental illness, “and he finally got out of it,” Jones said. “I thank God for it.”
The law “will really make a real difference” for people like his son, he said. And it’s so necessary, Jones added, that mental health and substance abuse issues are rising in the pandemic, and suicide rates and opioid mortality are skyrocketing.
In an important section of the bill, a managed care company that covers more than one million Georgia Medicaid patients must spend at least 85% of the money received from the program on medical care and quality improvement.
GHN and Kaiser Health News reported that Georgia is one of the few states that does not require Medicaid insurance companies to improve their medical costs and quality.
Jones told reporters that the goal is not to spend money on administration, but to spend more money on patient care.
On Tuesday, the State Capitol approved measures to grant grants to primary care facilities in rural areas and other high-need areas. Another bill passed allows patients to appoint a caregiver to assist in hospital discharge planning.
Caregivers are increasingly performing medical tasks such as medication management and wound care for their loved ones who have been discharged.
New rules for crimes of people with mental illness
The Mental Health Bill sets up a multi-step process for involuntary hospitalization of persons facing a mental health crisis.
Under current state law, people with mental illness must show an “imminent” risk of harming themselves or others before receiving treatment.
The bill creates some criteria for such commitments. This procedure involves determining that a person has a “substantial risk” of harming himself or others. And it creates a reasonable expectation that a crisis or serious psychiatric deterioration will occur without that care.
Other criteria include an assessment that hospital treatment has a reasonable outlook to help the person. Other less restrictive alternatives are not appropriate. And the person either refused voluntary treatment or lacked the ability to make such a decision.
Prior to the vote, HB 1013 co-sponsor Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decater, said the law primarily addresses severe mental health or substance abuse issues entering and exiting prisons and hospital emergencies. The room that said it was. “Let’s move forward for those who are really in danger,” she said.
And Calvin Smyre, the Democratic Party of Columbus, who has been the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, told him: It’s transformative. “
This story is available through a news partnership with Georgia Health News.
