Testimony to Support House Bill 3586

Dear Members of the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Committee:

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. I present my testimony based upon my professional experiences counseling families in an outpatient clinical setting.
I support House Bill 3586, An Act Relative to the Coordination of Children's Mental Health Care that will be heard this Wednesday, May 27th at the State House in Boston. This proposed bill will require commercial insurers to pay for collateral contacts for children with mental health needs. Collateral contacts refer to scheduled, in-person or telephonic consultations between a therapist and other individuals in a child’s life (parents, teachers, pediatricians, guidance counselors, etc) who can help withcoordination of care and help the therapist better understand how the child is responding to the treatment.

Currently, Mass Health pays for collateral contacts. As a clinician, I have found collaborating with the above professionals very helpful in coordinating the best care for these children who were involved with a variety of providers. For example, this past year, I attended a meeting at an inpatient residential facility for boys, ages 5 years old and up. My client who is a tween, between eight to twelve years old, was admitted for a ten day evaluation for acting out in school. The staff psychologist invited me to a meeting with his teachers and with parents to discuss an action plan to discharge this client back into his community and to live at home with services in place. If it wasn’t for Network Health paying for my time to attend this one hour meeting, the client’s action plan would have been incomplete for servicing his mental health needs. A residential facility can not discharge a child unless his/her action plan includes provisions for counseling services in the community.

Unfortunately, for those children on commercial insurances, I have declined attending meetings with their schools due to not being reimbursed for my time. For example, last month (April 2008), I declined attending a team meeting at my client’s school due to her commercial insurer not paying for my time. Please note that due to an ethical responsibility to service my client’s mental health needs, I did speak to the school personnel via telephone for less than twenty minutes. However, the client’s behavior did not improve in school and I was not able to attend further meetings in school. As a result, the parents decided to seek counseling services in school and terminated their child’s mental health services with me at the clinic.

Children are children no matter what health insurance provider covers their mental health needs. In spirit of the Children’s Behavioral Initiative to cover collateral contacts for children on Mass Health, I ask this committee to please support House Bill 3586, An Act Relevant to the Coordination of Children’s Mental Health Care.

I have asked parents on commercial insurances to please contact their legislators to support the above bill that will provide quality services for their children's mental health needs.

Respectfully submitted,

Robbin Miller, LMHC
Facilitator for www.therapistsforchange.blogspot.com