California has a healthcare and social services crisis on its hands. This state’s people live in a time of great generational vulnerability. Homelessness, food insecurity, and mental health diagnoses are all up considerably from just a few short years ago. Over 9 million Californians live in a community that has a shortage of mental health professionals, and over 20% of adults with anxiety and depression symptoms are unable to get counseling or therapy.
To combat this growing statewide healthcare epidemic, California recently launched an initiative called CalAIM, which is increasing the attention and services the state provides to individuals with these types of health concerns. By making greater use of 21st-century technology, the program is streamlining state processes to expedite response times to California residents’ health and social care needs — reducing care lapses while improving overall patient care.
A protectionist-driven bill in the California legislature, AB 1011, seeks to undermine the commendable progress the state is making on this issue by making it more difficult for health and social care providers to make referrals. If passed, this legislation would assist one well-connected technology corporation in obtaining more business, but it would come at great expense to California’s care access problem.
More than 96% of California’s family physicians keep electronic records, which can be shared easily with other health and social care organizations. Under current law, patients and customers can consent to their doctors and social care providers sharing this information with any care providers the patients deem necessary, and those care providers can use information in accordance with that individual’s consent. AB 1011 would end this age-old practice in California, effectively prohibiting care facilities from exchanging information with other providers to provide care to their shared patients, even when individuals consent to sharing such information. This is not just irrational; it is dangerous.
It often takes over a dozen referrals to get vulnerable Californians the proper care they need. Disallowing residents from providing consent for referrals undermines their autonomy, leading to dozens of extraneous calls and messages and extreme difficulty for doctors and social care organizations to serve the people they have pledged to protect. This is especially true considering that the most vulnerable segments of this state’s population often struggle to sign consent forms and answer care provider phone calls in timely fashions due to their life circumstances. AB 1011 would reverse much of CalAIM’s progress in addressing the state’s health and social services crisis, leaving thousands of Californians without care.
In this time of significant vulnerability, CalAIM has given thousands of Californians reason for hope. Now is not the time for the California legislature to reverse this hope and reverse years of technological progress to meet the business interests of one company. Now is the time for state lawmakers to double down on their commitment to addressing this pressing access to care issue so the state’s health and social care epidemic can soon become a relic of the past. The fate of scores of residents depends on it.
Katheryn Hunter is a private practice therapist and social worker who specializes in helping Californians navigate acute mental health episodes
