{"id":25518,"date":"2019-03-18T12:14:16","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T18:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25518"},"modified":"2019-03-18T12:32:47","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T18:32:47","slug":"bill-to-clarify-in-school-behavioral-health-coverage-advances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25518","title":{"rendered":"Bill to clarify in-school behavioral health coverage advances"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bill requiring insurance companies in Nebraska to pay for covered behavioral health services delivered in schools received first-round approval March 18.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Rick Kolowski<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Omaha Sen. Rick Kolowski said he introduced LB619 because there is confusion in current law about whether insurance companies will reimburse a provider who meets with a client at a school. Behavioral health providers sometimes offer services at a school when transportation is difficult or impossible for a student, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome insurance companies pay for it and some do not,\u201d Kolowski said.<\/p>\n

He said the bill would not expand coverage nor add any health care mandates.<\/p>\n

A Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee amendment, approved 28-0, clarified that the bill does not require an insurer to cover services otherwise excluded from a policy. The amendment also would delay the bill\u2019s implementation to June 1, 2020.<\/p>\n

Gothenburg Sen. Matt Williams, chairperson of the committee, said the amendment would eliminate any potential state expense.<\/p>\n

North Platte Sen. Mike Groene expressed concern that the bill would allow a school-employed counselor to bill an insurer for services he or she administered.<\/p>\n

\u201cSchool dollars are for education, not for health care,\u201d Groene said.<\/p>\n

Seward Sen. Mark Kolterman said the bill would aid students without affecting insurance companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis doesn\u2019t change anything other than make it easier for kids that need the help,\u201d Kolterman said.<\/p>\n

Senators advanced LB619 to select file on a 29-0 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill requiring insurance companies in Nebraska to pay for covered behavioral health services delivered in schools received first-round approval March 18. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25516,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-25518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking-commerce-and-insurance","tag-sen-rick-kolowski"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/LB619Kolowski3-18-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25518"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25523,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25518\/revisions\/25523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}