BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



                                                                  AB 367
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          Date of Hearing:   January 19, 2012

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

                    AB 367 (Smyth) - As Amended:  January 4, 2012 

          Policy Committee:                              Business and 
          Professions  Vote:                             8-0

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:              No

           SUMMARY  

          This bill, effective July 1, 2013, adds the Board of Behavioral 
          Sciences (BBS) to an existing list of agencies required to 
          report licensee status to the Department of Health Care 
          Services.  

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          1)Minor, one-time costs, not likely to exceed several thousand 
            dollars, to the Board of Behavioral Sciences to develop a 
            reporting protocol.  Ongoing reporting costs are likely to be 
            negligible.

          2)Minor costs to the Department of Health Care Services to 
            receive an additional report and ensure unlicensed persons are 
            not receiving payments from DHCS-administered programs.  The 
            cost of this additional workload is unlikely to exceed several 
            thousand dollars annually. 

          3)Unknown, potentially significant cost avoidance to Medi-Cal 
            and other DHCS-administered programs by ensuring providers 
            receiving payments are duly licensed. 

           COMMENTS  

           1)Rationale  . This bill is sponsored by the California 
            Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to improve state 
            oversight of professionals licensed by BBS.  The author 
            indicates that various state oversight and licensing boards 
            make reports to DHCS in order to prevent providers in bad 
            standing from being reimbursed by DHCS-administered programs, 








                                                                  AB 367
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            such as Medi-Cal. The BBS is currently not required to make 
            this report to DHCS.  This bill would add BBS to the list of 
            agencies required to report to DHCS when a license has been 
            revoked, suspended, surrendered, or made inactive.  

           2)Background  . The BBS licenses marriage and family therapists, 
            clinical social workers, professional clinical counselors, and 
            educational psychologists, some of whom provide services 
            eligible for reimbursement through Medi-Cal and other 
            DHCS-administered programs.  

           Analysis Prepared by  :    Lisa Murawski / APPR. / (916) 319-2081