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<\/p>\nGeorgia Council on Substance Abuse spokesman Jeff Breedlove said a recently enacted law on mental health parity could have major impacts on communities like Bartow County.<\/p>\n
JAMES SWIFT\/THE DAILY TRIBUNE NEWS<\/p>\n
Posted Monday, April 18, 2022 2:14 pm<\/p>\n
BY JAMES SWIFT<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
2022 being an election year, things are politically tense in Georgia.<\/p>\n
As divisive and partisan as the climate in the state may be, however, House Bill 1013 passed in the Georgia House of Representatives 166 votes to zero \u2014 then breezed through the Georgia Senate with a 54-0 vote.<\/p>\n
Republicans and Democrats may not agree on much, but it\u2019s apparent that Georgia\u2019s lawmakers \u2014 on both sides of the aisle \u2014 found HB 1013, alternately known as the \u201cGeorgia Mental Health Parity Act\u201d \u2014 to be important legislation.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s for good reason, notes Jeff Breedlove, the chief of communications and policy for the Georgia Council on Substance Abuse (GCSA.)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a six-part bill, so it does a lot,\u201d he told The Daily Tribune News. \u201cArguably the most impactful part of the bill is part one, the parity part \u2014 it establishes, finally, under State law after 14 years of the State not enforcing a federal law, that parity will be enforced.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp on April 4, brings Georgia into compliance with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.<\/p>\n
Essentially, that means insurance coverage for treatment of mental health and substance use disorders must be as extensive as treatment for other forms of physical and medical illness.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamilies will have access to mental health and substance use coverage in both private and public insurance policies,\u201d Breedlove noted.<\/p>\n
Barbara Hoffman, executive director of the local nonprofit Recovery Bartow, said the bill is no doubt an important one.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly intervention is crucial in positive treatment outcomes,\u201d she said. \u201cWith 76% of lifetime mental illness beginning in adolescence, 90% of adults with a substance use disorder stating they started using as an adolescent, and suicide the second leading cause of death ages 12-18 \u2014 and third leading cause ages 10-24 \u2014we had better have a massive paradigm shift in our thinking and understanding of mental illness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another major change enacted by HB 1013 pertains to the formula for medical loss ratio (MLR), which outlines how much insurance companies are required to pay the State of Georgia on certain types of coverage.<\/p>\n
Under the recently enacted law, the amount required in Georgia is bumped up 2%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe federal law is a minimum of 85%, in Georgia they\u2019ve been paying 83%,\u201d Breedlove said. \u201cThere\u2019s no set number, but every independent study that was testified about it, it was between $250 million and $500 million that should be going into the State budget.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without increasing taxes, Breedlove said that provision alone should generate \u201chundreds of millions\u201d for the State coffers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere weren\u2019t be any more money in the budget because of parity in the State budget, but there\u2019ll be more money in family budgets,\u201d he said. \u201cFor a lot of people, it means they don\u2019t get the help it all, for a lot of families it means they go into debt \u2026 now they don\u2019t have to do those things, now the policies will cover it the same way it covers a broken arm or a hip replacement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill also defines \u201cbehavioral health co-responders\u201d and requires Georgia to provide funding for a minimum of five new programs, with each program comprised of at least one co-responder team.<\/p>\n
\u201cLaw enforcement officers will start getting training so that they are better equipped in the field to know how to service somebody who may be having a mental health or substance use issue that\u2019s not necessarily a crime,\u201d Breedlove said. \u201cWe\u2019ve set things up in law where the officer will contact a doctor on a cell phone \u2014 it\u2019s telemedicine coming to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such policies and models, Breedlove said, could have major impacts on incarceration rates throughout the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just that we have one, we\u2019ve figured out how to do it for Georgia,\u201d he said. \u201cAll the way from point of contact to where the peer ends up and how you transport them and who\u2019s responsible \u2014 all that\u2019s in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
The recently enacted law also contains a loan forgiveness provision for \u201can array of professions\u201d and benefits packages for individuals who agree to work in smaller, typically underserved rural or exurban communities for at least one year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have more people who want to provide the medical services for mental health and substance use disorders in our state, instead of going to Florida or Tennessee or Alabama,\u201d he said. \u201cSo not only will they help the Georgia community medically, they\u2019ll be buying a home or renting an apartment and working and eating and shopping and dining out and doing entertainment stuff in our state \u2026 so we\u2019re building a workforce, and I think that\u2019s a huge investment that\u2019s going to help local governments with their budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Breedlove said he doesn\u2019t have any concerns about oversight or enforcement of the provisions of the bill \u2014 but rather a sense of optimism.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked very hard with the commissioner of insurance, with the governor\u2019s office, with the attorney general\u2019s office,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe believe that the language in the bill to enforce all the parts of this bill, that the proper legal language is in there and the proper funding is in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted that there is money in the State budget for a compliance officer within the Georgia insurance commissioner\u2019s office. He also said there is text within the bill that makes it unmistakable how insurance companies are supposed to do their mandatory reporting to stay in compliance with the act.<\/p>\n
In other states, Breedlove said comparable bills leave some ambiguities regarding reporting criteria. In the worst case examples, he said companies simply hand over data points to the State \u2014 tantamount to a meaningless \u201cword salad,\u201d as he described it.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder our law, it has to be submitted in such a manner that the department of insurance can interpret it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the citizens can read it and use it in a practical way to know it\u2019s being enforced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recovery community organization (RCOs) and other substance use disorder treatment programs could be major beneficiaries of the new law, Breedlove said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs people get the health care they need on the front-end \u2014 as they go from active addiction to some type of treatment \u2014 you\u2019re going to see more people enter into recovery,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they will know how to utilize places like Recovery Bartow and the Arena \u2026 we couldn\u2019t be more ecstatic from a practical point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Hoffman, the passage of HB 1013 is an indication that \u2014 potentially \u2014 prevailing perspectives may be changing on matters that have long been subject to stigmatization.<\/p>\n
“I think ‘mental health’ should be changed to ‘brain health’ to emphasize the fact that mental illnesses and substance use disorders, both often co-occurring, originate in an actual organ of the body, like for example, heart disease,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we thought of these medical conditions as an injury or trauma to the brain, we would likely not have had to have this battle for mental health parity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Georgia Council on Substance Abuse spokesman Jeff Breedlove said a recently enacted law on mental health parity could have major impacts on communities like Bartow County. JAMES SWIFT\/THE DAILY TRIBUNE NEWS Posted Monday, April 18, 2022 2:14 pm BY JAMES SWIFT 2022 being an election year, things are politically tense in Georgia. As divisive and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\n