Vetoed by Governor Joseph Lombardo

Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that requires new oversight regulations of behavioral healthcare in Nevada.

Highlights:

• Requires that the Department of Health and Human Services tracks federal and state spending on the children’s behavioral health system of care (Sec. 2).

• Requires that the Department quantifies and track avoided costs through expenditures on the children’s behavioral health system of care (Sec. 2).

• Requires that the Department solicites, complies, and analyzes information and hold public hearings about (Sec. 2):

• Use of federal and state money spent on the children’s behavioral health system of care; and

• Ways to reinvest saved money from avoided costs in the children’s behavioral health system of care that addresses the behavioral health needs of children in Nevada and reduces involvement of children in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.

• Requires the Department to present at a biennial meeting of the Joint Interim Standing Committee on Health and Human Services concerning (Sec. 2):

• Projected avoided costs through the expenditure of federal and state funds on the children’s behavioral health system of care during the following 2 years; and

• Recommendations for reinvestment of avoided costs.

• Requires that the Department submits a biennial report on avoided spending and reinvestment to the Governor and the Director of the Legislative Counsel Bureau for transmittal to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and the Assembly Standing Committee on Ways and Means (Sec. 2).

• Specifies that the children’s behavioral health system of care includes (Sec. 2):

• Respite for caregivers and families;

• Community-based and in-home child behavioral health services;

• Services for children in a behavioral crisis, including mobile crisis services and in-home stabilization services;

• Services that promote coordination of behavioral health care between families and providers, including high fidelity wraparound;

• Family-to-family peer support services;

• Specialty services for children with emotional disturbances and dual diagnoses;

• Behavioral health services identified in the state plan for foster care and adoption assistance; and

• Any services prescribed by regulation of the Division of Child and Family Services of the Department.

• Defines high fidelity wraparound to mean an evidence-based team-oriented process used to develop and implement a plan designed to meet the behavioral health needs of a child in collaboration with the child’s family (Sec. 2).

• Requires that the subcommittee on the mental health of children must include two members recommended by and upon agreement of the mental health consortia (Sec. 6).

• Requires that each policy board must also advise the Division of Child and Family Services as appropriate (Sec. 8).

• Requires the coordination and exchange of information between policy boards to include the Division of Child and Family Services (Sec. 8).

• Requires that each policy board submit an annual report on issues relating to behavioral health services to the Division and the Division of Child and Family Services (Sec. 8).

• Expands regulations on licensing to include any facility that provides behavioral health care or treatment (Sec. 12.8).

Full Bill Text