Renzo Downey
A bill aimed at setting Florida on a path to increase behavioral health care access received its first nod in the House on Tuesday.
The House Finance and Facilities Subcommittee voted 17-1 Monday to advance Rep. Cyndi Stevenson‘s proposal (HB 701) to aggregate data and distribute information on mental health care access from private health insurance companies.
The St. Johns Republican’s measure would require health insurers and health maintenance organizations to notify customers of state and federal requirements on behavioral health coverage and alert them to a toll-free number to report consumer complaints about the availability of behavioral health services.
Stevenson told the committee she has received numerous complaints about access to mental health services. Yet the Department of Financial Services only receives and opens five cases each year, which she called surprising.
People who don’t get the behavioral health care services they need will frequently lose their jobs, families and support networks. Eventually, they likely will end up on Medicaid.
“This is not a tragedy because of the expense,” Stevenson said. “The tragedy is the lost years of opportunity, the children in foster care, perhaps incarceration, the bad outcomes and sometimes permanent damage.”
Additionally, the bill would require DFS and the Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees Florida’s Medicaid program, to create protocols to track behavioral health service complaints and provide a report to the Legislature and Governor by 2022.
Miami Democratic Rep. Nicholas Duran expressed his desire that the report wouldn’t only be a one-time finding. That could be a possibility for the future, Stevenson replied, but for now she is pushing for just the one report.
Adam Roberts, lobbyist for the Florida Mental Health Advocacy Coalition, said the proposed report could be an avenue to identify possible barriers within the health care system to mental health services.
Howey-in-the-Hills Republican Rep. Anthony Sabatini, the lone dissenting vote on the panel, said he feared placing additional obligations on health care providers would only further drive up the cost of insurance.
However, Stevenson retorted that putting the extra burden on private health insurance providers would offset the cost that befalls the Medicaid system when people eventually end up on their rolls.
Several lawmakers shared personal stories of dealing with behavioral health services on behalf of family members.
Delray Republican Rep. Mike Caruso recalled the unanswered complaints he filed with the state and service providers when trying to get care for his son, who has bipolar schizophrenia, after he was released from the hospital. For six years after his 30-day hospitalization, Caruso’s son was homeless and the family “didn’t know where he was.”
“I felt like I was shouting into the wind,” Caruso said. “Nothing ever got accomplished. I never heard back from anyone.”
Stigma against mental health, particularly among certain ethnic and religious groups, complicates the effort to provide care to those in need, Stevenson added.
“That stigma is not something that we can can address in legislation,” she said. “It’s something we have to do by talking about it, letting people know there is successful treatment. You see it more and more on TV. That helps too.”
Stevenson’s bill has three more committee stops, the next of which is the Insurance and Banking Subcommittee, before it is ready for a vote on the House floor. A similar measure (SB 1024) on the Senate side, carried by Sanford Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur, has not yet been scheduled for a hearing in its first of three committees.
