Congresswoman Matsui Discusses Her Mental Health Legislation at Energy and Commerce Hearing
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Today, June 16, 2015
CONTACT: JULIE EDDY
(202) 225-7163
Congresswoman Matsui Discusses Her Mental Health Legislation at Energy and Commerce Hearing
Bill would decrease mental health stigma and encourage providers to involve family members and caregivers in patients' mental health treatment and recovery
Today, at a hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Health, members and panelists discussed H.R. 2690, the Including Families in Mental Health Recovery Act, which was introduced by Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-CA) on June 9, 2015.
The legislation would clarify when providers may share protected health information, by instructing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to promulgate regulations consistent with the February 2014 guidance issued by the HHS Office of Civil Rights. The bill also would provide $30 million to fund education and training to providers, administrators, patients, and families on HIPAA privacy rules and the guidance.
Congresswoman Matsui's remarks were as follows:
"We need to reform our nation's broken mental health system. We should all care about this issue, before, during, and after a crisis or an event that affects us personally.
We shouldn't wait until a person is in acute crisis to provide needed care and services. And we shouldn't abandon people once their immediate crisis has ended.
There is a full spectrum of mental health and illness that our system needs to address, and a full spectrum of treatment options, tools and services, and supports that we need to make available. It's not right to prioritize funding only for the highest level of care, such as inpatient hospital beds, at the expense of funding the rest of the continuum of care.
I believe in the power of prevention and that we need to do more to catch many conditions, including mental illnesses, early before they progress. I know our current system is flawed. And I look forward to working with my colleagues to fix it.
That is why I introduced the Including Families in Mental Health Recovery Act, which is one of the pieces of legislation that we are discussing here today.
Stories of patients and their families who suffer from mental illness do affect me personally. Time and time again, including what will be in your testimonies today, I have heard horror stories from patients, families, and providers about what happened when providers could not communicate with caregivers and information wasn't shared.
I hear from providers and families alike, the mantra, "I couldn't share, because of HIPAA". However, the language of the HIPAA law does not prevent information sharing in 99% percent of the stories I hear. Rather, it is the vast misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and overly cautious application of the HIPAA law.
This is important. There is a problem here, but HIPAA isn't the root cause of it, which means that changing HIPAA won't fix anything. The root problem is awareness of what is and isn't allowed under the law.
The bill that I introduced would do two simple things: first, formalize HHS Office of Civil Rights guidance, which clearly outlines how providers can strike the right balance between sharing information with caregivers and protecting patients' privacy.
Second, it would require the development and dissemination of a model training program to educate and train providers, administrators and lawyers, and patients and families on what can and can't be shared under the law.
I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on this and other important mental health legislation."
###