OUTSTANDING LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVE FROM CONGRESSMAN TIM MURPHY (R-PA-DISTRICT 18) ****
http://murphy.house.gov/#dialog
LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR BRAD GRANTZ
Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (HR 3717), which contains language codifying protected classes as we discussed.
I pasted the Wall St Journal editorial board piece supporting the bill below. There’s also endorsements from the Sac Bee, Observer-Reporter (PA), and other op-eds like the woman who wrote “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother.”
In short, the bill focuses programs and resources on psychiatric care for patients and families most in need of services. These individuals are severely mentally ill, and as such, are the greatest consumers of social services. They often de-stabilize (go off medication because they deny their ill) then end up back in a hospital, on the streets, or in jail. In Maryland, just 500 people cost the system $36.9M annually.
We’ve heard an enormous outpouring of support from caregivers with loved ones who have a serious mental illness. And, the bill has received significant coverage and bipartisan praise from parents and groups across the country including American Psychiatric Association, National Sheriffs Association, and NAMI.
Attached is a four-page summary and a section-by-section of the bill. More on the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act:http://murphy.house.gov/HelpingFamiliesInMentalHealthCrisisAct.
Editorials and Headlines
A Mental Health Overhaul, editors of the Wall Street Journal
A Law to Fix Mental Health Care, Dr. Sally Satel for Bloomberg
Family of grandson in fatal stabbing speaks out in support of Murphy MH Reform Bill, KDKA-TV, Pittsburgh (VIDEO)
New Bill Decreases Mental Health Funding, Increases Mental Illness Funding, Huffington Posteditorial by DJ Jaffe
Murphy’s bill a step toward mental health reform, Washington (PA) Observer-Reporter
San Fran should take up Laura’s Law again, Amy Yanello, SF Chronicle columnist
Mental health pushed in Congress before Newtown anniversary, CNN
Rep. Murphy’s Bill Would Shift Focus: Make Major Changes In Mental Health Care, Pete Earley, journalist and father of mentally ill son
Organizations Writing Letters of Support
National Sheriffs’ Association
American Psychiatric Association
American Psychological Association
Treatment Advocacy Center
National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
Mental Illness Policy Org
National Council for Behavioral Health
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Wall Street Journal editorial: A Mental-Health Overhaul (12/26)
A Congressman produces a set of good ideas for a difficult problem.
A year has passed since the Newtown massacre, and Americans this month marked the somber moment. The most fitting tribute Congress could pay the 26 victims would be to return in January to take up Pennsylvania Representative Tim Murphy’s thoughtful overhaul of federal mental-health policies.
Severe mental illness is the common link among the recent mass shootings, and for decades the political class has ignored the systemic dysfunction in a mental-health system that fails the sickest. Getting to the root of this problem is hard, which is why Congress defaults either to spending more money or brawling over gun control.
***
Mr. Murphy, a psychologist, has spent the year since Sandy Hook studying the problem. His House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations has dug into federal policies, and his reform is aimed at helping the next Adam Lanza before he strikes.
The feds spend a stunning $125 billion a year on “mental health” via programs ranging from Medicaid to the Social Security Administration. Yet the Murphy committee discovered that most of this cash goes to vague and ineffective services rarely focused on treating the most serious illnesses—schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or severe depression. There is little interagency coordination, little government data collection on treatment outcomes, and no central effort to drive evidence-based care.
A prime example is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the Department of Health and Human Services. Samhsa every year pushes $460 million in block grants to community mental-health centers. The agency is a fan of “patient driven recovery,” which allows the mentally ill to craft their own treatments and stresses “hope” and “empowerment.” Samhsa has little or no focus on medically driven care, and of its 537 full-time employees only two are physicians.
***
The Murphy bill would reorient all of this and create a new HHS assistant secretary for mental health and substance-abuse disorders who would lead federal mental-illness efforts. The secretary would have to be a medical professional and would be responsible for promoting the medically oriented models of care adopted by the National Institute of Mental Health, or NIMH.
An example: One NIMH project showed that identifying the first sign of psychosis in an individual, and immediately treating it with lower-dose medication, could prevent a patient from developing full-blown schizophrenia and allow a functioning life. These are the treatments that federal dollars need to be supporting.
The new assistant secretary would take over the grant process; community centers that want money will have to prove they are meeting evidence-based standards. The new position will also be responsible for collecting data on treatment outcomes and shifting federal efforts based on the results.
The Murphy bill also uses grant money to push states to modernize their mental-illness laws. Some 23 states still allow for involuntary commitment only if a mentally ill person is an imminent danger to himself or others. This standard is nearly impossible to meet, and even psychotics are often able to present a brief façade of normality. Many are unaware they’re even ill and won’t voluntarily get help.
Community mental-health centers would only receive grants if their state’s commitment laws include a “need for treatment” standard, which gives families and physicians greater ability to get help for the mentally ill. Grants would also flow only to centers in the 44 states that have assisted-outpatient treatment laws, in which courts can require the mentally ill, as a condition of remaining in a community, to receive treatment. New York’s Kendra’s Law has been a model for how these outpatient treatment laws can help the most vulnerable and save lives.
The bill includes other pressing reforms, like removing the federal bias against hospital psychiatric care. Medicaid currently won’t reimburse for psychiatric care in any hospital that has more than 16 psychiatric beds. This restriction has led to the dismantling of psychiatric hospitals, releasing the mentally ill to commit crimes and receive subpar treatment in jails. Seventy years ago the U.S. had 600,000 inpatient psychiatric beds for a country half its current population. Today it has 40,000.
A similar shortage of psychiatric professionals—especially for children—has meant the average time between a first episode of psychosis and initial treatment can be 110 weeks. The Murphy bill addresses this by advancing tools like tele-psychiatry, which links primary physicians in underserved areas to psychiatric professionals. Speaking of children, the law finally fixes the federal privacy law known as HIPAA, once again allowing mental-health professional and families to share information about loved ones.
The Murphy legislation also addresses one of the more destructive forces in the mental-health system: the legal lobby. Many Americans may be shocked to know their tax dollars are funding a small army of self-anointed “advocates” who encourage the mentally ill to avoid treatment, and who fight parental and court attempts to get them care. The Murphy bill stops this funding. It also gives physicians legal safe harbor to volunteer at understaffed mental-health centers, something many currently won’t do for fear of malpractice suits.
***
These provisions may inspire the opposition of some Democrats beholden to the trial bar and ACLU. The Obama Administration may also resist a GOP initiative, and libertarians may oppose giving professionals more authority to intervene with care or object to creating a new government position.
They should think anew. The alternative is Vice President Joe Biden’s proposal to throw another $100 million willy-nilly at a failed system. All the money in the world won’t help the mentally ill if it isn’t getting to them or is squandered on ineffective treatments. The Murphy bill is an informed attempt to overhaul a broken system. It might even prevent the next Newtown.
Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act
Rep. Tim Murphy, Ph.D.
More than 11 million Americans have severe schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression yet millions are going without treatment and families struggle to find care for loved ones.
The federal government’s approach to mental health has been a chaotic patchwork of antiquated programs and ineffective policies across numerous agencies. Sadly, patients end up in the criminal justice system or on the streets because services are not available.
The Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act fixes the nation’s broken mental health system by focusing programs and resources on psychiatric care for patients & families most in need of services. The bill:
Empowers Parents and Caregivers
Breaks down barriers preventing doctors and mental health professionals from talking to parents about mentally ill loved ones who are in an acute mental health crisis.
Fixes Shortage of Inpatient Beds
Increases access to acute care psychiatric beds for the most critical patients.
Alternatives to Institutionalization
Provides alternatives to inpatient care through court-ordered ‘Assisted Outpatient Treatment’ — reducing rates of imprisonment, homelessness, substance abuse, and costly ER visits for the chronically mentally ill.
Reaching Undeserved and Rural Populations
Advances tele-psychiatry to link pediatricians and primary care doctors with psychiatrists & psychologists in areas where patients don’t have access to mental health professionals.
Driving Evidence-Based Care
Creates Assistant Secretary for Mental Health (HHS) to coordinate federal government programs and oversee evidence-based models of care developed by the National Institute of Mental Health at Community Mental Health Centers. Ensures federal programs are optimized for mental health and patient care rather than bureaucracy.
Stabilizing Patients Beyond the ER
Protects classes of drugs so physicians can prescribe the appropriate medications for mental health patients enrolled in Medicare & Medicaid (similar to epilepsy, cancer).
Advances Critical Medical Research
Authorizes the BRAIN research initiative at the Nat’l Institute of Mental Health.
High Quality Behavioral Health Clinics
Improves quality and expands access to integrated medical and mental healthcare at community mental health providers.
Department Of Justice Reforms
Reauthorizes mental health courts so patients are treated in the healthcare system and not warehoused in the criminal justice system.
Behavioral Health Awareness For Teens
Combats stigma associated with serious mental illness.
Integrates Primary & Behavioral Care
Extends health IT so mental health providers can communicate and work with primary care physicians.
Increases Physician Volunteerism
Breaks down barriers preventing physicians from volunteering at community mental health clinics and federally-qualified health centers.
Reforms Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration
Emphasizes evidence-based treatments, sunsets unauthorized programs, and strengthens congressional oversight of all federal behavioral health grants.
Comments are closed.
