The Georgia House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a bill that aims to build upon landmark mental health legislation that became law last year.
House Bill 520 passed 163-3.
This year’s bill focuses on addressing a shortage of mental health providers and streamlining the way agencies share information about patients.
“(HB) 520 is essential for us to move forward for additional services and additional accountability the taxpayers of Georgia expect us to apply when we’re delivering services to families in crisis,” said Decatur Democratic state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, a co-sponsor of the legislation who also co-sponsored last year’s bill.
HB 520 aims to create a way for state agencies to share information that could help address what the bill calls “familiar faces” that law enforcement and mental health providers see time and time again. State Rep. Todd Jones, a Republican from Cumming, said there is a merry-go-round of people who cycle from homelessness to jails or prisons to the emergency room.
“Unfortunately, the criminal justice system has become the biggest provider of either substance abuse or mental health services,” he said.
The legislation calls on the Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission to work with the departments of Community Supervision, Corrections, Juvenile Justice and others to develop agreed-upon definitions of terms — such as “serious mental illness” and “recidivism” — to ensure consistent data collection from law enforcement.
This year’s bill aims to increase capacity for people who need to receive inpatient care and would ask the behavioral health commission to do a “bed study” to determine how many people can receive inpatient behavioral health care in Georgia facilities.
Last year’s effort was a priority of then-House Speaker David Ralston, who aimed to ensure that mental health care was covered by insurance companies in the same way that physical health care is covered. Lawmakers also greatly increased funding for mental health services. Ralston died in November.
Last year’s bill aimed to enforce a federal law that requires “parity” in health coverage and take other steps to improve care. The federal government in 2008 enacted a law that aimed to require parity — meaning insurance companies were to cover mental health care the same way they do physical health care. Data has not been collected in Georgia to determine whether that is happening, but anecdotal evidence indicated it was not at the time.
The law also requires public health insurers, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and private insurers to file reports on parity to the commissioners of the Department of Public Health and Department of Insurance.
“This issue is so important to our state that the members of this House, this body, need to be fully informed of y’all’s work over the years,” said House Speaker Jon Burns, a Newington Republican. “I can assure you that Speaker Ralston is smiling down on this body right now.”
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