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Beebe signs mental health care reform bill Wednesday, Apr 11, 2007 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - A new commission will advise state agencies on methods for establishing a flexible, efficient system of care for children's mental health. Gov. Mike Beebe has signed into law House Bill 2358, now Act 1593 of 2007, calling for an overhaul of the state's system of providing mental health services to children. "What we want to do is make sure we have a system that's driven by what's in the best interest of the child, what's in the best interest of the treatment for the patient, and hopefully, as a very close secondary factor to what's in the best interest, what's the most economically feasible for the taxpayers," Beebe said Tuesday after posing for photos with supporters of the measure. Beebe signed the bill by Rep. Earnest Brown, D-Pine Bluff, on Monday. Brown said Arkansas now spends about $240 million a year on children's mental health care, and the amount has doubled in the past four years. In comparison, Ohio spends about $204 million a year. "They have four times as many children in that state than we have, but we're spending more money than they're spending, so it's obviously a situation that needs to be addressed," Brown said. The measure "is designed specifically to do a whole analysis of the whole system, without regard to preferences for one provider or one group of services over another," the governor said Tuesday. He said legislation was filed this year that tried to give preference to one type of provider, "but we beat it." Beebe publicly opposed bills filed during the recent legislative session by Sen. Shawn Womack, R-Mountain Home, addressing mental health care in Arkansas. Among other things, Womack's bills would have declared that consumers "have the right to select the qualified program provider of their choice, free from the coercion or influence of any government entity." They also requested more reimbursement from Medicaid for residential psychiatric facilities and would have allowed reimbursement to be made only to outpatient mental health care providers that have been operating and accredited for at least one year. In a statement issued last month, Beebe said Arkansas spends too much on residential psychiatric care and needs to make greater use of alternative resources such as community-based care, when appropriate. In an interview Tuesday, Womack said Beebe is wrong to suggest his bills would have given a preference to one type of provider. "The concern was, there is in practice now some steering going on, where patients are steered either into the school-based mental health clinics or some of the community providers, and that they're trying to exclude some of the private providers," Womack said. "Mine would not have given a preference to anybody." After Beebe spoke to supporters of Womack's bills and persuaded them to withdraw their support, the senator recommended the bills for interim study. Under Act 1593, the governor will appoint 10 to 20 members to the Children's Behavioral Health Care Commission. The members will be advocates for children and families and representatives of "a variety of behavioral health care agencies, disciplines and providers," according to the legislation. Womack said he is concerned the new law may be the beginning of a process that will divert patients away from private providers, even in cases where private providers would be able to give the best care. "The proof of the pudding will be on who ends up being appointed. Once we see those appointments, that will determine probably the direction that it's going to take," he said. Brown said the intent of the legislation "is not to deny anybody treatment, but to make sure they get the best treatment under the circumstances." "We have a lot of people in out-of-state placements that are residential where some kind of community-based provider may be the best one," he said. |
