Action Alert
Help Pass Senate Bill 591
To Increase Behavioral Health Provider Reimbursement
What You Can Do:
- Read below for background about this important bill and spread the word to your staff, colleagues, and clients.
- Prepare your testimony now in case we get short notice of the hearing (see below for tips for testimony). You do not need to send your testimony until the hearing date has been posted. We will keep you posted.
- Recruit consumers to testify. Consumer voices are powerful and carry a lot of weight.
About This Bill:
Senate Bill 591: http://webserver.rilin.state.ri.us/BillText/BillText21/SenateText21/S0591.pdf
The Mental Health Association has partnered with Senator Miller to introduce Senate Bill 591, legislation to incrementally increase reimbursement rates to behavioral health providers over five years. It also requires OHIC to examine rates annually after the initial five year period. The aim is to achieve reimbursement parity between behavioral health providers and their counterparts on the medical side of insurance plans. The lack of pay parity, as it currently exists, is a violation of mental health parity law.
This legislation would affect public (Medicaid) and private (commercial) insurers and therefore carries a fiscal note for the State, who contributes toward Medicaid claims.
Opposition to payment parity has historically come from the insurance industry and the small business lobby–both powerful influencers on the House side. We are hoping that the pandemic and its documented toll on mental health has raised awareness about the importance of access to early treatment.
Representative Craven introduced similar legislation on the House side. His version of the legislation is slightly different and had less community input. We had very short notice for the House Health and Human Services Committee hearing, so we are trying to get a big turnout for Senator Miller’s bill.
Senate Bill 591 has not been scheduled for a hearing yet. We will keep you posted.
Tips for Testimony:
Even if you testify verbally (via telephone) during the remote hearing, it is still recommended that you submit written testimony. The written testimony will be referred to when the Committee votes on the legislation, sometimes weeks after the hearing. Written testimony also provides an opportunity to educate other legislators who are not part of the Committee.
- Verbal Testimony – maximum 2 minutes
- Written Testimony – maximum 2 pages
Points you can highlight:
- Paying behavioral health providers less than their counterparts on the medical side of an insurance plan is a mental health parity law violation
- Rhode Island has a shortage of in-network providers, especially psychiatrists. People with mental illness must get prescriptions for mental health conditions from primary care doctors. (Are cancer patients treated by primary care docs or oncologists? Do patients with heart disease see cardiologists or primary care doctors? People with mental illness deserve to see specialists too.)
- People of Color and immigrants have difficulty finding a provider who looks like them and shares their culture and/or language
- Consumers have to go on long waitlists to see providers with certain areas of expertise
- Consumers have to make call after call after call to find in-network providers who are taking new patients
- Providers have not had a rate increase in a number of years
- The cost of doing business has increased and providers are struggling to pay their bills; some are taking on loans, and others are at risk of going out of business
- If you or your organization has experienced financial hardship due to low reimbursement rates, share your story. Provide specific numbers to demonstrate your case. Look at your client caseload. Group them by insurance and explain where the deficits are. Provide specific numbers. This was a point made by Committee Members in Senator Miller’s 2020 Special Commission to Investigate Reimbursement Rates to Behavioral Health Providers and Dentists. Committee Members want to see the numbers.
| 2021 Members of the Senate Committee on Health & Human Services | Emails (Copy and paste the whole group when submitting your written testimony.) |
| Chair: Joshua MillerSamuel W. BellJeanine CalkinAlana DiMarioGayle L. GoldinValarie J. LawsonThomas J. PaolinoBridget ValverdeCommittee Clerk (must include) | sen-miller@rilegislature.govsen-bell@rilegislature.govsen-calkin@rilegislature.gov sen-dimario@rilegislature.govsen-goldin@rilegislature.govsen-lawson@rilegislature.govsen-paolino@rilegislature.govsen-valverde@rilegislature.govSLegislation@rilegislature.gov |