Legislative Committee: 

Gloria Craven, Tedi Hughes and Sharon Reynolds attended the legislative committee meeting on February 13th and went over a review tool Gloria developed for the committee to use for triaging bills. Once Tedi and Sharon have had a chance to narrow down the bills to be considered, the plan is for committee members to begin using the tool to review bills.

There was discussion about the Mass. Behavioral Health Partnership agreeing to do an analysis of the cost of running a private practice in response to a meeting Sharon attended in November with representatives from NASW and MPA (prompted by the Partnership having based a higher fee increase for public clinics on a cost analysis of public clinics only). The Partnership offered a survey tool to be filled out by volunteers in private practice and also asked that volunteers provide a copy of their tax return. Because of this stipulation and for some other reasons, it was decided by those who approached MBHP that they would not pursue this issue with them at this time. (There are other avenues being considered, however.)

There are three task groups: one is working on supporting the medical necessity bill; another the Commission on Advanced Practice Nursing; and a third one is tracking bills relating to child mental health issues.

NURS will be supporting a bill generated by the Mass. Psychiatric Society which prevents prescribing clinicians from being liable if a patient they are medicating is involved in a motor vehicle accident.

Mary Coakley, Deb Romano and Sharon attended the Senator Moore fundraising event in Worcester on January 22nd. It is anticipated that NURS will be getting more involved in supporting legislators sensitive to our interests.

Georgie Marks will represent NURS at the board meeting of the Mass. Association of Nurse Practitioners on March 8th for the purpose of exploring our mutual practice issues.

Jean Maddix has agreed to represent NURS on the soon to be formed state Commission on Advanced Practice Nursing.

Suzy Sayle continues to be involved in the quarterly BCBSMA Behavioral Health Provider Advisory Council. The most recent meeting was on January 22nd.

Sharon and Mary continue to be involved with the Mental Health Coalition. The monthly meetings offer opportunities for networking with and participating in legislative activities of mutual concern to a number of mental health disciplines and interest groups.

There was discussion about scheduling the legislative committee meetings well in advance so that more members would be able to attend. Another meeting will be scheduled in March.

Chair: Sharon Reynolds (sreyn-jwil@comcast.net)