Senator Cindy Friedman

State senators on Thursday introduced a bill that would require that patients suffering acute mental health symptoms get treatment without waiting for prior authorization, roll out a pilot program for tele-psychiatry in schools and implement other reforms to improve access to behavioral health services.

“Mental health care has long been treated as the lesser step-child of the health care system,” said Sen. Cindy Friedman, an Arlington Democrat and one of the authors of the bill. Friedman, who has spoken out about her child’s mental health treatment, described the system as disconnected, difficult and expensive in its current form. “For many families with loved ones in need of mental health care, finding that care is impossible,” she said.

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Natural gas safety and infrastructure won’t be part of the suite of climate policy bills the Senate is debating Thursday, but a handful of senators said leadership has pledged to bring a separate gas safety bill to the floor later this session. Senators withdrew their natural gas-related amendments from consideration Thursday afternoon, telling their colleagues and the public that they are satisfied with the commitment from Senate President Karen Spilka and others to address the state’s gas infrastructure in standalone legislation.

“I am really pleased the Senate president, the chair of Ways and Means and the senator I share Lexington with have agreed to do a natural gas bill to address all the issues that come up in these amendments,” Sen. Cindy Friedman said as she withdrew an amendment that would have established gas worker and safety reforms.

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The lawsuit comes amid heightened scrutiny of the care provided to people in the Department of Correction’s custody. It also raises continuing questions about the propriety of holding men who are civilly committed because they pose a danger to themselves or others due to substance use – and who are not incarcerated for committing any crime – in a facility run by the state Department of Correction rather than by public health officials.

Legislation sponsored by Sen. Cindy Friedman of Arlington and Rep. Ruth Balser of Newton would end the practice for men as well. Men were not included in the initial lawsuit, so they were also left out of the legislation that Baker signed. Today, civilly committed men are split between facilities run by the Department of Public Health, the Department of Correction and, in western Massachusetts, the Hampden County sheriff’s office.

Both Friedman and Balser said they were unaware of specific concerns about medical care at MASAC, but their bills attempt to address the larger issue of whether addiction should be treated as a disease or as a crime. Friedman called it “the criminalization of an illness” to confine people for substance-use treatment in a jail setting.

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Massachusetts has been a clear leader when it comes to health care coverage, and as a result, outpaces other states in health care outcomes. But it has taken a village of health care policymakers, economists, practitioners, community leaders, and legislators to create an insurance coverage system that not only works, but that also rises above partisan acrimony.

Another area where the state’s performance leaves a lot to be desired is access to behavioral and mental health and drug use disorder services, with many providers refusing insurance for behavioral health at the current reimbursement rates.

“The first thing we have to do for mental health and substance use disorders is raise the rates that we pay to providers for the service. They are extremely low and it’s just forcing people out of the system,” says state senator Cindy Friedman. The second thing, she says, is integrating behavioral health into primary care. “We have to stop carving out mental health. As long as we treat it as a stepchild or a separate piece of health care, it will be so difficult to get to.”

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BOSTON – Last week, Representative Michelle Ciccolo (D-Lexington) and Representative Rich Haggerty (D-Woburn), along with their colleagues in the House of Representatives, unanimously passed legislation to create a registry of care providers who harmed a person or persons with an intellectual or developmental disability. The bill had previously passed the Senate unanimously with the support of Senator Cindy Friedman (D-Arlington) on Oct. 17, 2020.

“It is unconscionable that we do not have laws on the books to adequately protect disabled persons in Massachusetts who experience harm by their own caretakers,” said Senator Friedman. “The Legislature has shown its commitment to protecting our state’s disabled population by passing this important legislation, which would make it much easier to identify abusive caretakers in our communities. This is a commonsense step that will make an enormous impact on our families, friends and neighbors throughout the Commonwealth.”

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For years, the urgent care industry has grown rapidly, with walk-in clinics popping up across Massachusetts to treat patients with colds, infections, cuts, sprains, and other common ailments. Yet the industry remains largely unregulated. Urgent care has become a common term in health care — but it has no state definition in Massachusetts, making these centers difficult if not impossible to monitor, according to state officials.

“Our goal is to provide high-quality, affordable, and accessible health care to everyone in the Commonwealth,” Senator Cindy F. Friedman, cochair of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, said in a statement. “Urgent care centers provide this kind of health care to our residents — so yes, they too should be subject to regulations and oversight.”

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At its annual meeting on Dec. 5, the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys honored several individuals for their advocacy of elder services and their commitment to raising awareness of legal issues affecting seniors, including electing Needham attorney, Pamela B. Greenfield, as chapter president-elect for 2020.

Massachusetts State Sen. Cindy F. Friedman was also named Legislator of the Year for her support and efforts for passage of legislation that protects seniors, particularly those with special needs and disabilities.

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