Senate committee advances bill moving mental‑health fee rules into statute

House Bill 2020, which moves a departmental fee schedule for mental‑health services from rule into statute, was advanced out of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee with a due‑pass recommendation.

Jared Larson, legislative and regulatory affairs chief at the Department of Health and Welfare, told the committee the bill follows earlier agency efforts to transfer rule provisions into statute now that the state is no longer a direct service provider. "Nobody is denied services for an inability to pay," Larson said, describing the bill's preservation of that requirement while replacing an unwieldy sliding scale with a 5% cap on income used to calculate client fees.

The nut of the bill is…