Fiscal impact reports (FIRs) are prepared by the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) for standing finance

committees of the NM Legislature. The LFC does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of these reports

if they are used for other purposes.

Current FIRs (in HTML & Adobe PDF formats) are a vailable on the NM Legislative Website (legis.state.nm.us).

Adobe PDF versions include all attachments, whereas HTML versions may not. Previously issued FIRs and

attachments may be obtained from the LFC in Suite 101 of the State Capitol Building North.

F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Leavell

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/22/08

HB

SHORT TITLE Carlsbad Telepsychiatry Services

SB 85

ANALYST Haug

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY08

FY09

$157.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Higher Education Department (HED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 85 appropriates $157.0 from the general fund to the Board of Regents of the

University of New Mexico for telepsychiatry services in Carlsbad. No more than ten percent of

the appropriation may be used by the university for administrative costs.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of

$157.0

contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the general fund. Any

unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of fiscal year 2009 shall revert to the

general fund.

The HED states that this request was submitted by UNM to the New Mexico Higher Education

Department for review, but was not recommended by the Executive.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

According to the HED, UNM’s Center for Rural & Community Behavioral Health’s (CRCBH)

Telepsychiatry and Behavioral Health Program has a partnership with Carlsbad Behavioral

Health Services and is designed to:

Senate Bill 85 – Page

2

.

Promote behavioral health workforce development opportunities for providers of medical

and behavioral healthcare in rural/frontier New Mexico;

.

Provide opportunity for children, adolescents, adults and families in rural/frontier New

Mexico access to psychiatric specialists with particular expertise in child/adolescent,

substance-use-disorders, neuropsychiatric, and geriatric populations via telehealth

technology;

.

Foster collaboration between primary care and behavioral health providers in these

settings;

.

Be both flexible enough to adequately respond to the special contexts in which providers

care for New Mexicans in rural/frontier areas and structured enough to be functional and

implemented.

The HED states further that this approach provides various options for distance education (from

didactic instruction to case consultation to collaborative assessment and/or treatment) for

providers of medical and behavioral healthcare in rural/frontier areas while also directly

improving access to psychiatric services. The approach includes the provision of educational

credits for participating providers and ensures that community providers will be able to bill for

time spent co-treating clients through telehealth when appropriate. Emphasis is placed on the

dissemination, modeling and use of evidence-based practice through training, consultation and a

model of patient-and-family-centered interdisciplinary collaborative care. The goals of the

program are:

.

Increased access to specialty psychiatric services throughout New Mexico via telehealth.

.

Increased clinician skill and satisfaction with skills specific to people with behavioral

health problems.

.

Establish/reinforce communication and collaboration between clinicians in school-based

health centers & local primary care providers.

The HED states that in addition to the partnership with Carlsbad Behavioral Health Services, the

Telepsychiatry and Behavioral Health Program has partnerships with:

•

Region IX Educational Cooperative/Ruidoso School Based Health Center

•

Hidalgo Medical Services/Silver City High School's school based health center

•

Sangre De Cristo Community Health Partnership

•

Indian Health Services

•

Gallup Indian Medical Center

•

Apex Education

•

New Mexico Human Services Department

•

New Mexico Department of Health

•

New Mexico Department of Health/Office of School and Adolescent Health

•

UNM Center for Telehealth; UNM Project ECHO; UNM REACH Program

GH/mt