STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1177

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: H.B. No. 541

H.D. 1

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2021

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services, to which was referred H.B. No. 541, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Establish the State Payor Committee, to be administered by the Directors of the Departments of Health and Human Services, or their designees, to establish a purchase of service framework that aligns all behavioral health and substance abuse service contracts;

(2) Require executive programs that purchase social services related to behavioral health or substance abuse to coordinate with the State Payor Committee as part of the planning for purchases of the enumerated services; and

(3) Require all community or private organizations that purchase services for behavioral health or substance abuse, at the request of any state funding agency, to disclose the source of other federal, state, or county-level funding it receives for the purposes of performing such services.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health and Office of the Mayor of the County of Maui. Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from one individual. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Human Services, State Procurement Office, Phocused, Hawaii Substance Abuse Coalition, and The Queen's Health Systems.

Your Committees find that the intention of this measure is to ensure that procurements for behavioral health and substances abuse services are public and known. Act 263, Session Laws of 2019, created a working group whose purpose was to evaluate current behavioral health care and related systems and to identify steps to promote effective integration to respond to and coordinate care for persons experiencing substance abuse, mental health conditions, and homelessness. Your Committees find that this working group can be reconstituted to effectuate the goals of this measure. The working group is preferable to the new committee proposed by this measure because the working group is already familiar with the problems this measure aims to combat.

Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Deleting its contents and inserting the language of Act 263, Session Laws of Hawaii 2019, a measure that establishes a working group within the Department of Health to evaluate current behavioral health care and related systems and identify steps to promote effective integration to respond to and coordinate care for persons experiencing substance abuse, mental health conditions, and homelessness, with the following amendments:

(A) Updating the working group's purpose to be to identify gaps in services, coordinate funding sources, and establish and identify outcome measures for behavioral health, substance abuse, and homelessness;

(B) Removing the representative of the Hawaii Opioid Initiative executive steering committee from the working group; and

(C) Adding to the working group, the Governor's Coordinator on Homelessness, a representative from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and a representative from the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry who is affiliated with the American society of Addiction Medicine;

(2) Making it effective upon its approval; and

(3) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 541, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 541, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Health and Human Services,

________________________________ JOY A. SAN BUENAVENTURA, Chair

________________________________ JARRETT KEOHOKALOLE, Chair