Add §7.42, Ment Hyg L; add §628-a, Tax L; add §89-j, St Fin L
Establishes the child psychiatry access project; provides that the office of mental hygiene shall establish regional child psychiatry access projects across the state to provide primary care providers with timely access to child psychiatry consultations in order to assist such primary care providers in meeting the mental health needs of the children and adolescents and their families; establishes a gift for the child psychiatry access project on state personal income tax forms, the proceeds from which shall be deposited into a child psychiatry access fund for the funding of such projects.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
7525
2021-2022 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
May 13, 2021
___________
Introduced by M. of A. FRONTUS -- read once and referred to the Commit-
tee on Mental Health
AN ACT to amend the mental hygiene law, in relation to establishing the
child psychiatry access project; to amend the tax law, in relation to
establishing a gift for the child psychiatry access project; and to
amend the state finance law, in relation to establishing the child
psychiatry access fund
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The mental hygiene law is amended by adding a new section
2 7.42 to read as follows:
3 § 7.42 Child psychiatry access project.
4 (a) The office shall, within amounts appropriated therefor, establish
5 or may contract for the establishment of regional child psychiatry
6 access projects across the state to provide primary care providers with
7 timely access to child psychiatry consultations in order to assist such
8 primary care providers in meeting the mental health needs of the chil-
9 dren and adolescents and their families.
10 (b) Regional teams shall consist of a child psychiatrist with appro-
11 priate support staff, and be established to provide child psychiatric
12 telephone consultations to primary care providers within the designated
13 region resulting in one of the following, depending upon the needs of
14 the child patient and/or family:
15 1. Responding to the primary care physician's patient specific ques-
16 tions about behavioral health;
17 2. Assisting the family in accessing routine, local behavioral health
18 services, with the understanding there may be a waiting period;
19 3. Providing transitional support to the child patient and family
20 until the family can access routine, local behavioral health services;
21 4. Making referral to a team child psychiatrist for an acute psycho-
22 pharmacologic or diagnostic consultation.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD07314-01-1
A. 7525 2
1 (c) Regional teams may also provide mental health resource services,
2 educational services, mental health advocacy and other related services
3 to the provider and mental health community.
4 (d) Child psychiatry access services provided under this section shall
5 not discriminate against children and families, based upon their insur-
6 ance status, when such services are accessed through their primary care
7 provider practicing in the region.
8 § 2. The tax law is amended by adding a new section 628-a to read as
9 follows:
10 § 628-a. Gift for the child psychiatry access project. Effective for
11 any tax year commencing on or after January first, two thousand twenty-
12 two, an individual in any taxable year may elect to contribute to the
13 child psychiatry access fund. Such contribution shall be in any whole
14 dollar amount and shall not reduce the amount of state tax owed by such
15 individual. The commissioner shall include space on the personal income
16 tax return form to enable a taxpayer to make such contribution.
17 Notwithstanding any other provision of law, all revenues collected
18 pursuant to this section shall be paid to the child psychiatry access
19 fund established pursuant to and used only for those purposes enumerated
20 in section eighty-nine-j of the state finance law.
21 § 3. The state finance law is amended by adding a new section 89-j to
22 read as follows:
23 § 89-j. Child psychiatry access fund. 1. A special fund to be known
24 as the "child psychiatry access fund" is hereby established in the joint
25 custody of the state comptroller and the commissioner of taxation and
26 finance.
27 2. The fund shall consist of all moneys transferred to such fund
28 pursuant to law, all moneys required by any provision of law to be paid
29 into or credited to the fund, all moneys from gifts pursuant to section
30 six hundred twenty-eight-a of the tax law and any interest earnings
31 which may accrue from the investment of moneys in the fund. Nothing
32 contained in this section shall prevent the state from receiving grants,
33 gifts or bequests for the purposes of the fund as defined in this
34 section and depositing them into the fund according to law.
35 3. Moneys of the fund, when allocated, shall be made available to the
36 office of mental health solely for the purpose of establishing child
37 psychiatry projects pursuant to section 7.42 of the mental hygiene law.
38 4. Moneys shall be payable from the fund on the audit and warrant of
39 the comptroller on vouchers approved and certified by the commissioner
40 of mental health.
41 § 4. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall
42 have become a law.
