LEGISLATIVE UPDATES

The California legislative session for 2019/20 ended on August 31, 2020. The impact that COVID had on the Legislature was significant and resulted in a massive reduction of bills in 2020. Here are some highlights of bills for which CAMFT advocated this year:

AB 5 Fix: AB 2257 (Gonzalez) Worker Classification: Employees and Independent Contractors – This bill was identified as an "AB 5 fix" by Assembly Member Gonzalez, who drafted AB 5. The final version of AB 2257 modifies how two contracting businesses will interact with one other by making changes to the business to business section originally contained in AB 5. This bill has already gone into effect.  Under the new rules,  business service provider employees are allowed to provide customer services. Before this language, a business service provider (contractor) was not allowed to provide services to the primary business' customers or, in our case, patients. CAMFT continues to research how this relates to sole-proprietors and the establishment of S-Corporations. CAMFT supported this limited expansion that allows MFTs and other professionals to contract with a business to provide services.  CAMFT will be releasing an article to help members assess their independent contractor status under AB 2257.

AB 3330 (Calderon) Department of Consumer Affairs: Licensees Regulatory Fees – The issue to increase licensing fees was seen in many forms this year. Initially, the licensing fees were in a standalone bill sponsored by the Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS). After that bill failed, the issue moved to the Department of Consumer Affairs' (DCA) budget proposal that the Legislature initially rejected. The proposal to increase licensing fees for multiple licensing boards at DCA, which  included MFTs, LCSWs, and LCPPs, was later added to another budget bill passed by the Legislature in August. The final version establishes a new fee and a cap limiting how high licensing fees can go, and BBS is given the authority, upon Board approval, to increase fees up to that cap. This authority intends to give BBS the ability to remain finically solvent without returning to the Legislature each time fees need to be adjusted to meet their costs. Before the increase, the Board had not raised fees in the Legislature for nearly 20 years.     CAMFT was neutral on this proposal. This new fees in the table below will go into effect on January 1, 2021.

SB 855 (Wiener) Health Care Coverage: Mental Health or Substance Use Disorders – This bill requires health plans to cover the medically necessary treatment of mental health and substance use disorders under the same terms and conditions applied to other medical conditions identified in the DSM (currently, the DSM V). This bill includes MFTs, Associates, MFT trainees, and others in the providers' list allowed to provide treatment. Health plans are also required to arrange for treatment with uncontracted providers when an in-network provider is not available in specified instances. This bill was about health plan coverage and removing barriers to covered treatment through new protections for health plan enrollees to obtain treatment. CAMFT supported this bill to help ensure access to all medically necessary treatment. This bill was signed by the Governor and goes into effect on January 1, 2021.

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