Judy Gallant

In early January, the Maryland General Assembly started their annual 90-day legislative session. As of this writing at the very beginning of February, we have submitted testimony on two bills, both in support of the bills’ aims.

We presented testimony in support of Senate Bill 245, clarifying language from the social work licensing bill passed in 2017. In particular, the bill clarifies that social workers are entitled to treat alcohol, drug use and addictive behavior, as well as use technology as set forth in regulations. We also requested language clarifying that any treatment by an LMSW or an LCSW of biopsychosocial conditions must be done under the supervision of an LCSW-C. Although these are currently in our scope of practice, this makes the language unambiguous in the law. I am grateful to Dan Buccino for his input re. our position on this bill.

Testimony we presented regarding Senate Bill 324 supports efforts to provide services to veterans and their families, specifically Mental Health First Aid programs, through requiring Maryland’s Department of Health to coordinate with the Veterans [no apostrophe] Administration.

We will be looking closely at two bills scheduled to be introduced by the Parity Coalition. One will require more rigorous network adequacy compliance reporting by insurers and the other will address out of network costs for individuals who are unable to receive in-network care due to inadequate networks.

We continue working in collaboration with our friends at the Maryland Behavioral Health Coalition at the MHA in supporting efforts to restore behavioral health funding in the proposed Fiscal Year 2021 budget to the levels required by both the 2019 minimum wage bill and the bi-partisan HOPE Act of 2017. The proposed budget slashes mandatory funding increases from 4% to 2%, under-funding public mental health and substance use treatment by nearly $25 million. The additional State funding is necessary to support increasing reimbursement rates for community behavioral health workers. (This does not impact insurance reimbursement rates; it specifically affects Maryland’s public mental health system.) Over 260,000 Marylanders rely on the state’s public behavioral health system for their mental health and substance use treatment needs, and without the additional funding, Community Mental Health Centers could be forced to reduce or eliminate services. Additionally, the legislature is working to fund strategies, recommended in the Kirwan report, that will help our schools. These budgetary issues are always difficult, and all the more so when a Republican governor works at cross-purposes to the largely Democratic legislators.

Interested in any of these topics? Please contact Judy Gallant at judy.gallant@verizon.net or sign up to volunteer to help our legislative committee on-line at our website at GWSCSW.org. We’re stronger working together.

Please feel free to contact me any time at judy.gallant@verizon.net.

Judy Gallant, LCSW-C, is the director of the Society’s Legislation & Advocacy program, as well as chair of the Maryland Clinical Social Work Coalition, our GWSCSW legislative committee in Maryland. She maintains a private practice in Silver Spring.