SPRING 2016
PA Medical Society Quarterly Legislative Update
Mental Health Bed Tracking System Senator Camera Bartolotta (R-Greene) recently announced that she is introducing legislation to create a real-time, voluntary reporting system to identify available psychiatric beds across the commonwealth. Sen. Bartolotta’s interest in the issue was
sparked after a recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, which reported that beds in hospital psychiatric units in Pennsylvania regularly sit empty, even while emergency departments struggle to find available services for patients in need of inpatient mental health care. These patients may wait for hours or days to receive needed behavioral health evaluation and management, further exacerbating emergency department crowding.
PAMED, along with the Pennsylvania Setting aside the fact that ABC-MAP Psychiatric Society (PPS) and the Pennsyl- is not up and running yet, the legislature vania Chapter of the American College of appears eager to take further action to help Emergency Physicians (PAACEP), support combat the proliferation of misuse and the development of a shared bed tracking abuse of opioids. Legislation was recently system and have provided Sen. Bartolotta introduced in the state House of Represenwith draft legislation to address the issue. We tatives that would require physicians and anticipate a bill to be formally introduced other prescribers and dispensers to complete in the coming weeks. Similar legislation CME in the areas of addiction and opioid was introduced this session in the House prescribing as a condition of licensure (HB of Representatives by Rep. Dan Miller, 1805). A similar proposal is expected to soon but it has not received consideration be introduced in the Senate. (HB 858). Currently, physicians must complete 100 hours of CME for biennial licensure; twelve of those hours must be completed in the areas of patient safety and risk management. PAMED’s position is that any new mandate for physicians to complete CME in pain management and opioid prescribing practices should satisfy a portion of these existing educational requirements for physicians to complete CME in the areas of patient safety and risk management.
Changes to the Child Protective Services Law
Mandatory CME Legislation The state’s opioid abuse epidemic has continued to intensify, with significantly higher rates for drug-poisoning deaths in Pennsylvania than the U.S. average. A recent study by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) revealed a 225 percent increase in the number of hospitalizations for overdose of pain medication and a 162 percent increase in the number of hospitalizations for overdose of heroin from 2000 to 2014. From 2013 to 2014, Pennsylvania’s drug overdose death rate increased significantly, by 12.9 percent.
The creation of a voluntary, shared bed tracking system would increase health care providers’ ability to ensure that proper mental health care is being delivered in an appropriate timeframe and in an appropriate setting. Specifically, the registry proposed by Sen. Bartolotta would provide contact information and descriptive details for participating psychiatric facilities throughout Department of Health officials recently the state; provide real-time information announced that the administrative infraregarding the number of beds available at structure for the state’s new prescription each facility, the type of patient who may drug monitoring program—also known be admitted, and the level of security; and as ABC-MAP (Achieving Better Care by identify appropriate facilities for detention Monitoring All Prescriptions)—is in place and treatment of individuals who meet the and the system should be operational by criteria for temporary detention. August 2016.
LANCASTER
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PHYSICIAN
Between the 2013-2014 and 2015-2016 legislative sessions, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed more than twenty bills to update the Child Protective Services Law (CPSL). The goal of the package of legislation was to implement recommendations from the Governor’s Task Force on Child Protection, which was formed in the wake of the Penn State Sandusky investigation. Amendments made to the CPSL in 2013 and in 2014 altered the scope of the child abuse clearance requirement. Those changes have resulted in some confusion as to how the law should be interpreted and which medical personnel are required to have a clearance. As a result of this confusion, legislation will soon be introduced in the state Senate to clarify who is covered under the child abuse clearance requirement in the CPSL. PAMED has provided input on the draft bill and will be monitoring its movement closely in the coming weeks. For the most current status, visit PAMEDSOC.org