SENATE DOCKET, NO. 1295 FILED ON: 1/14/2009
SENATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No. 731
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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
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In the Year Two Thousand Nine
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An Act Restricting Psychiatric Care..
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
Not withstanding any law or special policy any psychiatrist who has received any state or federal aids for their education or to establish their practice or both, shall not turn any new patient away unless accepting any new patients would cause an undue hardship on their workload. Any psychiatrist turning away new patients without the showing that taken the said new patients would have an detrimental impact on their workload shall forfeit any state or federal aid that they had received for the establishment of their practice and may not apply to accept Mass Health for a period of 1 year upon the determination by the state’s psychiatric licensing board that a psychiatrist had illegally turned away any new patient without showing that taking said new patients would have a detrimental effect on their workload.
A psychiatrist in accepting new patients may only turn away a new patient if said new patient has not been referred to them by their primary care physician.
The referral to a psychiatrist by a primary care physician to a new patient shall be made in writing. Said referral by a primary care physician need only state that their patient is in need of psychiatric care. The new patient must furnish this referral upon the first visit to the psychiatrist.
The process shall be repeated every time a patient needs to or wishes to go to a new psychiatrist for psychiatric care.
Any psychiatrist or their staff who retaliates against a new patient filing a complaint with the state licensing board for failing to accept new patients shall forfeit their license to practice psychiatry for a period of 1 year and be fined no more than $10,000.00 or both.