Mental Health Lobby Wants EHRs

Mental health advocates are seeking support on Capitol Hill for a bill that would make mental health providers eligible for billions of dollars in incentives set aside to spur adoption of electronic health records.

The bill would give mental health providers access to federal grants and incentives available to other healthcare professionals who use them to purchase and implement electronic health records and facilitate the exchange of health data among providers. Reps. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) and Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) introduced the legislation this spring.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), better known as the stimulus plan, "inadvertently restricts mental health practitioners from using most of the incentives that help health care providers and hospitals establish a nationwide health information technology (HIT) system," says the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, a nonprofit organization of 1,700 behavioral health care organizations that supports the bill.

Giving mental health providers access to health information networks is critical to the goal of using electronic medical records to better coordinate health care. About half of those with significant mental health conditions receive inadequate care, including 40 percent who seek help in primary care settings. Conversely, people with serious mental illnesses who are treated in public mental health settings receive poor care for non-mental health conditions such a diabetes and heart disease. Those patients have an average life expectancy of 52 years. The current life expectancy of people born in the United States is about 78 years.

The National Council contends that improved coordination of care made possible by widespread use of electronic health records could close the life gap.

"People with mental health and substance use conditions are in desperate need of more coordinated, integrated healthcare," says Linda Rosenberg, president and CEO of the National Council. "Having an interoperable system of electronic health information is critical to achieving greater coordination among addiction, mental health, and other healthcare providers, and to helping consumers manage their own care."