By Morgan Coleman and Raymond Nichols
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For 90 days starting in January of this year, the Maryland General Assembly met to decide on many pieces of legislation. The Maryland Psychiatric Society published an article (article link: https://mdpsych.org/legislation/session-recaps-laws/2023-general-assembly/) highlighting bills related to mental healthcare. Here are five of the bills that passed that the B’More Clubhouse community might find interesting:
SB 283/HB 418 was about the Behavioral Health Workforce in Maryland. This bill established an investment fund to recruit, educate, place, and train more behavioral health professionals. We may still be waiting a couple of years to see the effects of this bill because the Maryland Healthcare Commission must conduct an evaluation to see what the state’s needs are.
SB 8/HB 121 pertains to treatment plans for individuals in facilities. The bill requires more specific regulations for treatment plans, including long-range discharge goals and estimates of the probable length of stay. This bill also allows patients to consent to another person (family or otherwise) to be included in the treatment plan and any later adjustments. The patient can also revoke this consent at any time, either orally or in writing. Additionally, this bill makes the grievance submission process more transparent. It moves some of the burden onto facilities to help patients transfer if their treatment goals are unmet.
“SB 362 requires the Maryland Department of Health to apply for federal planning, development, and implementation grant funds related to” Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs), which can provide highly accessible and cost-effective care for people with mental health conditions, regardless of income, age, and zip code.
SB 154 promotes a public awareness campaign about advance directives for mental healthcare. It also says that Maryland Behavioral Health Administration (MD-BHA) and MHCC must study how these advance directives can be accessed by first responders who may be responding to a crisis. (Fun fact: you can get support for creating your advance directive at the Clubhouse!)
SB 858/HB 307 strengthens regulations about storing firearms and ammunition, mainly when they might be accessible to minors. Raymond (co-author of this blog post) is interested in this bill because “it’s a public safety issue. It’s important to keep guns locked up--away from kids’ hands.” This bill is called Jaelynn’s Law (article link: https://www.wypr.org/wypr-news/2023-03-15/jaelynns-law-passes-maryland-senate-tightening-requirements-about-gun-storage) in memory of 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey, who died in 2018 due to a gun in the hands of another minor.
The authors of this blog post spent a few weeks sorting through the legislative material to understand it all. We thought about giving up and scrapping this article for something more lively or entertaining. Still, we decided to write this blog anyway because we must keep ourselves informed about laws that affect us. Knowing these bills helps us stay knowledgeable about our rights and make us better advocates for ourselves and our community. Do you have any thoughts about this year’s Legislative Session?
Sources:
https://mdpsych.org/legislation/session-recaps-laws/2023-general-assembly/
