2019 Regular Session

ByRepresentatives Young, Cody, Schmick, and Macri

Read first time 02/22/19.Referred to Committee on Health Care & Wellness.

AN ACT Relating to the transfer of patients on a single bed certification to an evaluation and treatment facility; and amending RCW 71.05.745.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1. RCW 71.05.745 and 2018 c 201 s 3032 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) The authority may use a single bed certification process as outlined in rule to provide additional treatment capacity for a person suffering from a mental disorder for whom an evaluation and treatment bed is not available. The facility that is the proposed site of the single bed certification must be a facility that is willing and able to provide the person with timely and appropriate treatment either directly or by arrangement with other public or private agencies.

(2) A single bed certification must be specific to the patient receiving treatment.

(3) A designated crisis responder who submits an application for a single bed certification for treatment at a facility that is willing and able to provide timely and appropriate mental health treatment in good faith belief that the single bed certification is appropriate may presume that the single bed certification will be approved for the purpose of completing the detention process and responding to other emergency calls.

(4) Once a bed at an evaluation and treatment facility is vacated, a patient in a facility as a result of a single bed certification must be transferred to the evaluation and treatment facility promptly, but no later than twenty-four hours after the bed becomes vacant. If there are multiple patients on single bed certification waiting for an evaluation and treatment facility bed to become available, the vacated bed must be made available to the patient who has been waiting on a single bed certification for the longest period of time, unless the evaluation and treatment facility and the authority agree that the evaluation and treatment facility is not capable of meeting the patient's clinical needs. An evaluation and treatment facility may not refuse to admit a patient who is on a single bed certification if the evaluation and treatment facility is capable of meeting the patient's clinical needs.

(5) The authority may adopt rules implementing this section and continue to enforce rules it has already adopted except where inconsistent with this section.