While it feels like we just closed the chapter on the 2026 legislative session, preparations for the next session are already underway. This is the time of year when CSAP begins gathering and reviewing potential legislative proposals, evaluating their feasibility, and identifying measures to pursue with potential legislative authors. As we look ahead to 2027, the following proposals are currently under consideration by CSAP:

  • Private Practice: Address insurance reimbursement challenges, streamline single case agreements, strengthen insurer accountability, protect small psychiatric practices, and improve coverage for psychiatrist-provided care.
  • Patient-Focused Mental Health Provider Directory Accuracy and Access: Require insurers to maintain accurate provider directories, assist patients with scheduling appointments, and authorize out-of-network care when timely in-network services are unavailable.
  • Practice-Focused: Insurance Claim Appeal Accountability: Establish financial penalties for insurers whose claim denials are overturned on appeal and increase transparency around insurance denial rates.
  • California Insurance Medical Reviewer Payment Transparency Act: Establish a public registry disclosing the identities, affiliations, compensation, and financial incentives of medical professionals involved in insurance coverage denials.
  • Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Maintenance Authorization Period: Extend authorization for maintenance ECT to 90 days while preserving existing patient consent protections and requiring periodic clinical reassessments.
  • Meta Social Media Settlement: Explore opportunities to direct California’s anticipated settlement funding toward addressing social-media-related mental health harms among children and adolescents.
  • Expand the WIC § 5270 Post-Certification Alternative to Conservatorship Statewide: Make the additional 30-day involuntary treatment period available statewide to reduce unnecessary conservatorships.
  • CARE Act Access, Continuity, and Accountability: Improve CARE Act petition procedures, eligibility determinations, treatment continuity, and reporting requirements to address gaps in access and care.
  • CARE Act Independent Assessment and Legislative Oversight: Require an independent Legislative Analyst’s Office assessment of CARE Act implementation, effectiveness, costs, and outcomes, followed by legislative oversight.
  • CARE-to-LPS Prepetition Screening: Allow CARE courts to refer individuals for LPS prepetition screening before dismissal when additional involuntary treatment evaluation may be appropriate.
  • LPS Conservatorship Referral and Evaluation Access Act: Establish standardized county procedures and timelines for accepting and screening conservatorship referrals from hospitals, community providers, families, and other sources.
  • LPS Conservatorship Administration and Accountability: Provide dedicated state funding for county conservatorship administration and establish standardized reporting on referrals, investigations, outcomes, and processing times.
  • Individualized Treatment Planning for LPS Conservatees: Strengthen treatment planning requirements through measurable recovery goals, periodic reviews, and strategies for transitioning conservatees to less restrictive care.
  • Major Neurocognitive Disorders and LPS Act Eligibility: Clarify that individuals with dementia or other major neurocognitive disorders cannot be categorically excluded from LPS evaluation, treatment, or conservatorship solely because of their diagnosis.
  • Augmented Residential Care Facilities for LPS Conservatees: Establish a new residential care model providing enhanced staffing, supervision, and treatment for conservatees who need more support than traditional residential facilities but less restrictive care than institutions.
  • Repeated Behavioral Health Crises: Clinical Review and Reassessment: Require clinical reassessments for individuals experiencing repeated involuntary holds, psychiatric hospitalizations, conservatorship referrals, or certain CARE Act dismissals.
  • California Behavioral Health System Improvement and Accountability Act: Establish an independent statewide office to evaluate behavioral health system performance, investigate systemic failures, and recommend improvements.
  • County Behavioral Health Performance Standards and Post-Acute Care Accountability: Establish statewide performance standards for county behavioral health services, including treatment access, care coordination, discharge delays, and post-acute placement.
  • County Behavioral Health Chief Clinical Officer: Require counties whose behavioral health directors are not board-certified psychiatrists to designate a psychiatrist to oversee and approve countywide clinical policies.
  • Residential Substance Use Disorder Treatment Safety and Accountability Act: Strengthen licensing, safety standards, ownership transparency, and enforcement for residential substance use disorder treatment facilities regardless of insurance or payment source.
  • Substance Use Disorder Treatment Facility Consumer Information Act: Establish a searchable public directory of licensed residential substance use disorder treatment facilities, including services, licensing status, and enforcement history.
  • Behavioral Health Delivery-System Transitions: Standardize procedures for transitioning Medi-Cal beneficiaries between specialty and nonspecialty mental health services while preserving continuity of care.
  • Behavioral Health Crisis Response Safe Harbor Act: Provide limited liability protections for peace officers making objectively reasonable behavioral health crisis response decisions while maintaining accountability for misconduct.
  • Clarification of Consecutive 5150 Holds (AB 2275): Clarify how time spent under successive 5150 holds is credited when patients are transferred to psychiatric facilities or placed on longer holds, addressing legal uncertainty that creates barriers to patient placement.
  • Residential Treatment Access for Children and Adolescents: Allow parents to voluntarily place children with severe psychiatric needs in locked community treatment facilities without relinquishing parental rights or custody, subject to clinical review and insurance coverage requirements.
  • Modernization of ECT Review Requirements for Regional Center Clients: Update the ECT Review Committee’s approval requirements, composition, and timelines to reduce treatment delays and ensure decisions reflect individual capacity and clinical needs while preserving patient protections.
  • LPS Data Reporting Requirements (SB 929 Cleanup): Clarify definitions and data collection requirements for involuntary psychiatric holds to improve reporting accuracy and reduce administrative burdens. Explore whether issues can be resolved through Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) guidance before pursuing legislation.

Have thoughts or questions about any of the above, email CSAP Advocate Paul Yoder.