AB 281

This bill combines the child psychiatry consultation program with additional

services into a new mental health consultation program. Currently, the child

psychiatry consultation program assists participating clinicians in providing care to

children with mental health care needs and provides referral support and additional

services. The 2019 biennial budget act requires the Department of Health Services

to convene interested persons, including the Medical College of Wisconsin, to develop

a plan and standards for a comprehensive mental health consultation program

incorporating various psychiatry specialties, including addiction medicine; a

perinatal psychiatry consultation program; and the child psychiatry consultation

program. This requirement from the 2019 biennial budget act is eliminated in the

bill along with the separate child psychiatry consultation program. The addiction

medicine consultation program currently assists participating clinicians in

providing care to patients with substance use addiction and provides referral

support and additional services, and the bill retains the addiction medicine

consultation program as a separate program.

The bill requires an organization to administer a mental health consultation

program (MHCP) that incorporates a comprehensive set of mental health

consultation services and may include perinatal, child, adult, geriatric, pain,

veteran, and general mental health consultation services. Under the bill, the

organization that currently administers the child psychiatry consultation program

must administer the MHCP during the 2023-25 fiscal biennium. After the 2023-25

fiscal biennium, DHS may continue with that organization or select another

organization to administer the MHCP through its request-for-proposal procedures.

The organization administering the MHCP may contract with any other entity to

perform any operations and satisfy any requirements of the MHCP. The

organization must do all of the following: 1) ensure that mental health providers

providing services through the MHCP have the appropriate credentials as described

in the bill, 2) maintain infrastructure to provide services statewide on every

weekday, 3) provide consultation services as promptly as practicable, 4) report to

DHS any information DHS requires, 5) conduct surveys of participating clinicians

as described in the bill, and 6) provide certain specified services. Those specified

services are the following: support for clinicians participating in the MHCP to assist

in the management of mental health problems; triage-level assessments to

determine the most appropriate response; diagnostics and therapeutic feedback

when medically appropriate; and recruitment of other practices to a provider's

services. The MHCP must be able to provide consultation services by telephone and

email but may also provide services by other means. In addition to the services

required in the bill, which are eligible for funding by DHS, the organization may

provide any of the services specified in the bill that are eligible for funding by DHS.