Senate passes bill extending Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Demonstration

The U.S. Senate last night approved by unanimous consent AHA-supported legislation (S. 599) to extend the Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Demonstration Program, which allows eligible states to pay certain institutions for mental disease for emergency psychiatric care provided to Medicaid enrollees aged 21 to 64. The bill, which now goes to the House of Representatives for consideration, would extend the program through September 2016, as long as it does not increase Medicaid spending, and to publicly-owned IMDs. It then would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to extend the program for three more years and to more states, subject to the same budget-neutrality standard; and require the agency to recommend by April 2019 whether to make the program permanent.