H-4693.1  _______________________________________________

                 SECOND SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 2663

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      56th Legislature     2000 Regular Session

By House Committee on Appropriations (originally sponsored by Representatives Alexander, Schual‑Berke, Parlette, Cody, Reardon, Ericksen, Morris, Tokuda, Benson, Doumit, Pflug, Kessler, Ruderman, Rockefeller, Edmonds, Santos, O'Brien, Hurst and Esser)

Read first time 02/07/2000.  Referred to Committee on .

Creating a pilot program to provide atypical antipsychotic medications to underserved populations.

    AN ACT Relating to the distribution of atypical antipsychotic medications to underserved populations; and creating new sections.

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

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  (1) The department of social and health services shall create a pilot program to provide atypical antipsychotic medications to the following underserved populations who meet one or more of these qualifications:

    (a) Persons in crisis who are not medicaid eligible;

    (b) Working poor under two hundred percent of the federal poverty level and who are not medicaid eligible and need continued access to antipsychotic medications;

    (c) Persons transitioning from jail and from department of corrections facilities to medicaid eligibility; and

    (d) Persons in jail.

    (2) This pilot program shall consist of not less than less than two grants awarded to regional support networks.

    (3) To be eligible for a grant under this program, the department shall establish a competitive application process specifying the population to be served and the reimbursement and distribution mechanism to be used.  The department shall evaluate the applications and award grants based on programs that optimize the number of individuals served within available resources.

    (4) Funding for this program shall be used to provide these persons with atypical antipsychotic medications and any associated laboratory testing related to the use of these medications.

    (5) Funding for this grant program is to be separate from the regional support network allocation formula.  The department shall report to the legislature on the results of this program by December 1, 2001.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2.  If specific funding for the purposes of this act is not provided by June 30, 2000, in the omnibus appropriations act, this act is null and void.

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