Child and Family Guidance Center urges Grayson County to back state bills to expand mental‑health workforce billing

Brenda Hayward, executive director of the Child and Family Guidance Center of Texoma, asked the Grayson County Commissioners Court on Feb. 11 to support House Bill 1716 and Senate Bill 469 to expand the ability of provisionally licensed mental‑health clinicians to bill insurance while they complete supervised hours toward full licensure.

Hayward said the bills respond to a workforce shortage that affects Grayson, Fannin and Cook counties and that the agency currently has a waiting list of about 70 people — most children on Medicaid. She told the court that the provider has lost 10 therapists in two years, in part to for‑profit virtual mental‑health platforms that do not accept Medicaid and often recruit licensed clinicians away from community mental‑health organizations.

"This bill will help us sustain our licensed training academy by growing more therapists to serve the Medicaid population," Hayward said. She described how provisionally licensed clinicians are currently prohibited from billing insurance, limiting the agency’s ability to use its trainee workforce to serve Medicaid clients.

Hayward also said lack of access to treatment increases crisis events that strain law enforcement, emergency responders and mobile crisis outreach teams and that aligning billing rules would help recruitment and retention of clinicians in rural areas.

After the public comment, a commissioner moved and the court approved the request to sign on in support of the named bills.