This bill combines the child psychiatry consultation program with additional
services into a new mental health consultation program. Currently, the child
psychiatry consultation program assists participating clinicians in providing care to
children with mental health care needs and provides referral support and additional
services. The 2019 biennial budget act requires the Department of Health Services
to convene interested persons, including the Medical College of Wisconsin, to develop
a plan and standards for a comprehensive mental health consultation program
incorporating various psychiatry specialties, including addiction medicine; a
perinatal psychiatry consultation program; and the child psychiatry consultation
program. This requirement from the 2019 biennial budget act is eliminated in the
bill along with the separate child psychiatry consultation program. The addiction
medicine consultation program currently assists participating clinicians in
providing care to patients with substance use addiction and provides referral
support and additional services, and the bill retains the addiction medicine
consultation program as a separate program.

The bill requires an organization to administer a mental health consultation
program (MHCP) that incorporates a comprehensive set of mental health

consultation services and may include perinatal, child, adult, geriatric, pain,
veteran, and general mental health consultation services. Under the bill, the
organization that currently administers the child psychiatry consultation program
must administer the MHCP during the 2023-25 fiscal biennium. After the 2023-25
fiscal biennium, DHS may continue with that organization or select another
organization to administer the MHCP through its request-for-proposal procedures.
The organization administering the MHCP may contract with any other entity to
perform any operations and satisfy any requirements of the MHCP. The
organization must do all of the following: 1) ensure that mental health providers
providing services through the MHCP have the appropriate credentials as described
in the bill, 2) maintain infrastructure to provide services statewide on every
weekday, 3) provide consultation services as promptly as practicable, 4) report to
DHS any information DHS requires, 5) conduct surveys of participating clinicians
as described in the bill, and 6) provide certain specified services. Those specified
services are the following: support for clinicians participating in the MHCP to assist
in the management of mental health problems; triage-level assessments to
determine the most appropriate response; diagnostics and therapeutic feedback
when medically appropriate; and recruitment of other practices to a provider's
services. The MHCP must be able to provide consultation services by telephone and
email but may also provide services by other means. In addition to the services
required in the bill, which are eligible for funding by DHS, the organization may
provide any of the services specified in the bill that are eligible for funding by DHS.