Snowe Announces Bill to Improve Emergency Psychiatric Care

Press Release

Snowe Announces Bill to Improve Emergency Psychiatric Care

Today, U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) introduced the Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Care Demonstration Project Act, legislation to create a three-year, $75 million demonstration program to allow states to apply for federal Medicaid matching funds to assist with health care costs affiliated with adult Medicaid patients at freestanding psychiatric hospitals.

Current law requires all hospitals, including freestanding psychiatric hospitals, to stabilize patients who come in with an emergency medical condition. At the same time, under an outdated Medicaid provision called the IMD exclusion, adult Medicaid patients (ages 21-64) are not covered for inpatient psychiatric care in a freestanding psychiatric hospital, but are covered in a general hospital psychiatric unit. Yet both types of hospitals are required to stabilize any patient -- which may require hospitalization -- who comes to them for emergency care regardless of ability to pay. Through a three-year demonstration program, the Snowe-Conrad-Collins-Wyden initiative addresses this inequity to show that adequate coverage of adult Medicaid patients will ultimately improve timely access to emergency psychiatric care, reduce the burden of overcrowded emergency rooms, and improve the cost-effectiveness of inpatient psychiatric care.

"All too often, patients in need of critical care are forced to endure prolonged stays in emergency rooms and hospitals without the psychiatric attention they need," said Senator Snowe, a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue. "This legislation will not only ensure patients receive the right care at the right time, but also improve the overall ability to deliver service"

The Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Care Demonstration Project Act is supported by 27 national healthcare organizations, including the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill--the country's largest advocacy organization for the mentally ill, the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems, the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of County Behavioral Healthcare Directors, the American College of Emergency Physicians, and the Emergency Nurses Association. U.S. Senators Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are original cosponsors of the bill.

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