California Legislative Updates
NYT on LA Street Psychiatry
This week, the New York Times ran an article highlighting the pioneering work of street psychiatrists on the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) HOME Team, including Yelena Koldobskaya, MD, who is an active member of the SCPS Unhoused Workgroup. She has been instrumental in developing several SCPS-suggested 2025 high-priority advocacy [...]
Legislative Proposals
CSAP's Governmental Affairs Committee (GAC) will meet again on October 17 to refine and prioritize issues. You may view proposals that have been submitted for consideration below. If you have an idea that could be impactful and pursued in 2025, there is still time to contact Paul Yoder at SYASL. 1. CARE Court: [...]
Success for CSAP Sponsored Bill – SB 1184 (Eggman)
Around a year ago, I was sitting in our hospital’s daily safety meeting. I listened as our nurse manager described how a patient had decompensated over the long weekend, became increasingly paranoid, injured a staff member, damaged property, and wound up in restraints. The patient was very ill. The staff were on edge. The [...]
Federal Government Releases Parity Requirements
The federal government released a document detailing “Requirements Related to the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act.” This document was developed, in part, to provide greater clarity to health plans and health issuers on how to respond to parity disclosure requests, which were previously mandated by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of [...]
2023-24 Legislative Session Ends?
The Legislature adjourned at midnight last Saturday, August 31. The final hours were tense and intense. There was division between the Senate and the Assembly that ultimately led to some bills dying unceremoniously as ultimately the Assembly ran out of time to process everything on their file due to decorum and procedural [...]
Legislative Adjournment
We are in the final week of the two-year 2024-25 Legislative Session. CSAP-sponsored SB 1184 (Eggman) and co-sponsored SB 1238 (Eggman) have passed both houses of the legislature and are headed to the Governor's desk for his consideration! For a complete list of CSAP-tracked bills that have been sent to the Governor as of [...]