Amendment #582 to H3400

Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project

[Sponsors] Representative Balser of Newton, Sullivan of Fall River, Swan of Springfield, O’Day of West Boylston, Scaccia of Boston, Khan of Newton, Walsh of Boston, and Forry of Boston move to amend H3400 by adding at the end the following sections: 

“SECTION 1. The General Laws as appearing in the 2008 Official Edition are hereby amended by adding after section 16 of chapter 19 the following new section:-

Section 16A.Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project

(a) The department shall develop or utilize a statewide program to provide mental health consultations by telephone to pediatricians, family physicians, nurse practitioners and youth serving primary care practices for persons under the age of 19 who exhibit a possible mental health or substance use disorder.

(b) The program shall incorporate, but is not limited to, the following guidelines:

(1) responding to all consultation requests within 30 minutes from primary care settings for quality access;

(2)hiring multiple person teams consisting of professionals who meet the educational requirements from the fields of child psychiatry, nursing, and social work;

(3)continued training for the team members;

(4)pro-active engagement, mentoring, and education to pediatricians, family physicians, nurse practitioners and youth serving primary care providers;

(5)ability to provide face to face consultations when telephonic consultation is not sufficient;

(6)care coordination and referral services for youth requiring behavioral health treatment regardless of type of insurance coverage;

(7)ability to serve children with transitional care concerns, while waiting for behavioral health treatment;

(8)outreach ability to the community and ability to use program to identify child mental health system issues;

(9)ability to internally track which insurance the child has in order to properly compile percentage billing rates, however, no child shall be turned away from a consultation based on health insurance; and

(10)ability to provide appropriate administrative support.

(c) The commissioner of the department shall seek and obtain payment as a condition of licensure from insurance companies doing business in Massachusetts for the use of the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project. Said billing shall be on a regular annual basis and shall be calculated based on the percentage of that insurers members using the program in the previous year. The commissioner shall publish an annualized report that indicates but is not limited to: the cost of the program, the amount requested of each payor, the number and percentage of the payor's members utilizing the program, relevant data on services rendered and outcomes achieved of the population served by this program in order to calculate the percentage charged to each insurance company licensed in Massachusetts.

(d) All retained revenue generated shall be allocated to a flexible spending account which shall be used to expand the program into educational settings.

SECTION 2. Subsection (c) of this act shall take effect on January 1, 2012.”