(The Center Square) – A Georgia legislative health committee is fine-tuning a bill to increase access to mental health care in Georgia and strengthen the behavioral care workforce.
The measure, backed by House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, would reform how mental health care is provided in the state. Reps. Todd Jones, R-South Forsyth, and Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, presented House Bill 1013 on Wednesday to the House Health and Human Services Committee.
“Sometimes you start off with small bites, however, this is a great big bite that’s going to be followed by a lot of small bites in the coming years as we move forward on this,” Oliver said.
The 75-page bill was developed from recommendations by the Georgia Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission. Jones said Georgia ranks 48th among other states in mental health. The commission was comprised of legislators, judges, mental health practitioners and advocates. The commission recommended implementing early and preventative care, addressing state parity and workforce shortages and removing barriers to care.
HB 1013 would make mental health care just as important as physical health, addressing parity. A compliance officer would be employed to ensure the best quality of service for patients. It would increase wages and create loan forgiveness programs for mental health care professionals. The state would spend $8 million to $10 million to provide cancelable loans for students pursuing careers in nursing.
“That is a necessary expense that we have to put forward in order to assist professionals, particularly in rural Georgia, but not only rural Georgia,” Oliver said. “It’s all across Georgia where workforce issues are very critical.”
The measure would streamline a patient’s point of contact between physicians and insurance companies. It also would create diversion programs for nonviolent offenders and complaint policies and processes.
Several mental health advocates and other Georgians spoke Wednesday in support of the bipartisan bill. Many shared personal stories or relatives’ experiences with mental health problems or substance abuse.
Some Georgians at the meeting asked the committee to ensure the bill mirrored federal protections for mental health patients and mental health training for educators. Others asked lawmakers to consider requiring language support and culturally sensitive services. Advocates also were concerned about privacy surrounding a mental health care database.
“The behavioral health database has to be created,” Oliver said. “We have a professor from Georgia Tech, database analytical person, on our commission, who says we don’t know who’s providing services where. The provision of a database, a real multisystems survey database will be exactly what we can use then to develop further implementation of the cancelable loan program.”
The legislative panel will consider adding the recommendations before holding a final vote on HB 1013. The bill must be approved by the full House and the Senate before it is sent to the governor.
