By WKTV Staff
deborah@wktv.org
On Nov. 8, the Senate Finance Committee passed Senator Stabenow’s legislation that would expand behavioral health care and support the social workers, psychiatrists, and other professionals who provide these services.
The Committee’s bipartisan mental health task force has written legislation to improve mental health and substance use services for Americans, and today’s legislation builds on this important work.
Expanding the mental health workforce
Over the past years, behavioral health clinics and services have expanded across the country, but those clinics will not be able to provide comprehensive care without a sufficient number of mental health professionals and providers. Senator Stabenow’s provisions will expand the mental health workforce, which will make it easier for Americans to get mental health and substance use disorder care when they need it.
“We know that you can’t have mental health care without mental health professionals,” said Sen. Stabenow. “That’s why we’ve been working to take the important steps to invest in the workforce that is needed to achieve our goals of quality mental health and substance use disorder services for all Americans who need them.
“Our bipartisan taskforce has been working to build on the progress we made when we passed transformative community mental health care for the country last year.”
Benefits of included provisions
Sen. Stabenow’s included provisions as part of the Better Mental Health Care, Lower-Cost Drugs, and Extenders Act would:
- Expand Medicare’s Health Professional Shortage Area bonus program to attract more mental health care providers to shortage areas, including many rural communities.
- Require Medicaid to issue new guidance to states on increasing the mental health workforce.
- Ensure clinical social workers can provide their full range of services to Medicare beneficiaries, including patients in nursing homes.
- Add a permanent definition for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics in the Medicaid program, ensuring these clinics can continue to transform the way we provide behavioral health care in our communities.
Recent legislation has provided needed health services
A transformational initiative to fully fund high-quality mental health and addiction services through Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics was introduced in 2022. Due to the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, every state and the District of Columbia can expand community behavioral health services to their residents.
These Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics are transforming community care by setting high-quality standards of care and then funding mental health and substance use disorder services as health care through Medicaid.
