Palm Beach Post (Florida)

August 17, 2023 Thursday

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Florida has experienced a significant increase in psychiatric crisis hospitalizations of children and teens in recent years, and an increase in those children being repeatedly hospitalized in the same year.

The 2024 legislative session will be my last before I term out of the Florida House, and I plan on continuing my quest to improve the mental health framework in our state. I plan on refiling legislation from the 2023 Legislative session that increases Medicaid requirements for managed care plan behavioral health performance for children.

The Florida Medicaid program has a significant role in behavioral health care because it insures a disproportionate share of the children are repeatedly hospitalized for behavioral health problems.

My first piece of legislation in 2017, House Bill 1183, focused on mental health for minors, particularly with regard to the Baker Act statute. The bill passed both chambers and was signed into law by then Gov. Scott. As a result of the legislation, a Baker Act Task Force was created to investigate the use of the Baker Act on minors with particular focus on children sent for medical evaluation by school authorities.

The task force met for six months after the bill was signed into law and provided a list of recommendations to the Legislature. I filed, passed, and had signed into law legislation from the 2019 session that implemented several recommendations provided by the Baker Act Task Force, House Bills 361 and 363. In the 2020 legislative session House Bill 945 passed, requiring the Department of Children and Families and the Agency for Healthcare Administration to identify children who are high users of crisis stabilization services and to meet behavioral health needs of such children. For the 2023 Legislative Session, I focused on mental health legislation by proposing, passing, and having signed into law House Bill 829, Operation and Administration of the Baker Act.

The Baker Act was groundbreaking when it first passed in the early 1970s because it created protections for individuals with mental illness while getting them treatment. The Baker Act allows individuals believed to have a mental illness and dangerous to oneself or others to be deprived of liberty so that they can be medically assessed and stabilized. It’s a complicated law, and it interacts with many other laws governing schools, nursing homes, and hospitals – places where individuals may be found in serious need of help.

House Bill 829 requires the Department of Children and Families to update and maintain key information resources that help the hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers, school administrators, clinicians, facility directors, and others who implement the Baker Act to understand the law and act correctly. Doing so will preserve an individual’s liberty while ensuring those who truly need the treatment will get it.

Increasing Medicaid requirements for managed care plan behavioral health performance for children is my next priority.

The legislation is extremely important in addressing the shortfalls in our mental health care system, as it would require the Agency for Health Care Administration to establish network requirements for each type of behavioral health provider serving Medicaid enrollees and improve its testing of behavioral health provider networks.

State Rep. David Silvers is a Democrat who represents District 89 in Palm Beach County.

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Rep. David Silvers

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