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Strike-all on mental health bill passes final Senate panel

Senior Editor Top Stories

The House and Senate bills are now practically identical

Sen. Erin Grall

Sen. Erin Grall

It took the Senate Fiscal Policy Committee less than four minutes to unanimously approve a 105-page rewrite of a measure to modernize the state’s mental health and substance abuse laws on February 27.

The lawmakers had zero questions or debate on the bill, SB 1784, which is now headed to the Senate floor. It is in a nearly identical posture to the House bill, HB 7021, which has also passed all its assigned committees.

The bills will cost $50 million to implement.

The quick fashion with which the latest Senate fiscal panel voted on the legislation is part and parcel for both chambers’ measures. The bills have received little public scrutiny from lawmakers since the first and second House committee stops, when representatives asked questions and commented on what it did and didn’t achieve.

Rep. Patt Maney

Rep. Patt Maney

In the third and final House committee, however, lawmakers had no questions and no debate other than to praise sponsor Patt Maney’s work. A retired Republican judge from Shalimar since he was first elected in 2020, Maney has wanted to reform the state’s Baker and Marchman acts, which govern voluntary and involuntary examination and treatment laws for mental health and substance use, respectively. And in the two Senate committees, there were no questions or debate at all.

In the first Senate stop, sponsor Erin Grall, a Republican attorney from Vero Beach, credited the lower chamber for the majority of the work and made clear that the measures, which still had major differences then, had the support of House and Senate leadership. In the second and final committee stop, Grall presented the rewrite that substantially matched the House, including the $50 million price tag.

The Department of Children and Families requested the $50 million to implement the legislation, including $25 million for an anticipated increase in involuntary commitments, Maney said.

“We have a lot of these people who cycle through the system,” Maney said. “Twenty percent of the people use 44% of the mental health and substance use services. So, this treatment is designed to address the cycling, [to] try to cut that down.”

He said another $10.5 million would be used for Marchman Act services, and $14 million for the discharge planning component that tells people the type of follow up care they need and how to get it. He said $500,000 was included for the University of South Florida to analyze Marchman Act cases in addition to the Baker Act cases, which they already track.

In broad strokes, the bills seek to make it easier to get someone involuntary or voluntary mental health and substance abuse treatment by addressing the pain points in the process. Committing a person for treatment from start to finish involves many different sectors of society: courts, schools, police officers, community mental health programs, family members. The bills require many of these different groups to work together to “improve accessibility, availability, and quality of behavioral health services;” for state agencies and contractors to provide more analysis on factors that contribute to the need for services; and to create more streamlined court procedures. They expand the group of medical professionals that can recommend or sign off on treatment and require more detailed medical notes about the commitment as well as personalized discharge plans.

While the bills are largely the same, Grall’s version, which is more recent, closes even more gaps in the treatment cycle.

It allows for treatment to criminals with behavioral health disorders via telemedicine. It requires an involuntary examination to include “consideration of the patient’s treatment history at the facility and any information regarding the patient’s condition and behavior provided by knowledgeable individuals.” If the patient has been examined repeatedly over a short period of time, then it could be considered evidence they were an immediate harm to themselves, which is a qualifier for involuntary commitment. When a repeat patient is discharged, the facility must review their past discharge plans outlining the patient’s follow-up care and “address problems experienced with [their] implementation.”

It is likely Maney will adopt Grall’s additions before his bill is heard by the full House, saying he anticipated amending it again before it reached the floor. Maney also said he wishes the bill would also expand the criteria for committing someone for treatment beyond when a person is an immediate threat to themselves or others. But Maney said that would be an expensive ask as it would make it even easier to commit someone and would drive up demand for services.

The House is scheduled to hear Maney’s bill on the floor on March 1.

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