Senate Finance Committee Releases First Piece of Larger Mental Health Package

On May 26, the Senate Finance Committee released a discussion draft of one piece of a larger package expected out this summer.  This is the first language to emerge since the Committee announced its five areas of focus for addressing shortfalls in mental health care earlier this year:  telehealth, workforce, care integration, mental health parity, and youth. 

With Medicare being entirely administered by the federal government and Medicaid and CHIP being federal-state partnerships, the bulk of the proposal relates to Medicare.  For Medicaid and CHIP, it would direct states to promote and support the use of telehealth, through guidance and technical assistance, and would incentivize states to use their CHIP programs to establish local solutions to serve behavioral health needs in schools, including through telehealth.

Discussion drafts of additional provisions for the larger package may be released before committee mark-up, or they may go straight to mark-up.  The proposals from the other four working groups are expected to be more elaborate than the telehealth piece.