Four More Bilirakis Measures Pass the House

Washington, DC:  This week, the House passed the Support for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act, which includes a variety of provisions to improve mental health and substance abuse treatment options throughout the country.  This package includes four measures authored by Congressman Gus Bilirakis.  These four provisions are designed to improve public health outcomes,advance critical research, and ensure vulnerable children have access to mental health services.    

 The Combating Illicit Xylazine Act will help stop the illicit use of the highly dangerous sedative causing fatal overdoses nationwide, xylazine. This animal drug tranquilizer, safe for use in large animals by veterinarians, has never been approved for human use and has shown to produce horrific side effects when laced into fentanyl. The Bilirakis co-authored legislation will permanently place xylazine into Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, providing law enforcement with key tools they need to track and prosecute traffickers of this drug. “My goal is to save lives and to make sure law enforcement has the tools its needs to respond appropriately to those who are making these deadly concoctions killing so many of our neighbors.  At the same time, we must ensure that those veterinarians who are using xylazine for legitimate purposes have the ability to continue doing so. Our legislation strikes that right balance,” said Congressman Gus Bilirakis.    

The FIND Fentanyl Act would reauthorize a pilot program to fund state and local agencies to improve coordination between public health laboratories and law enforcement entities for the purposes of detecting and stopping fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. “To better curb the fentanyl crisis we are seeing in our communities, we must coordinate our efforts between medical experts and law enforcement, and this pilot program will go a long way to ensure we detect fentanyl and remove from our streets,”  said Bilirakis.  

The SWIFT Detection Act would update our methods to track fentanyl and other illicit controlled substances by authorizing the CDC to provide grants to conduct wastewater surveillance and other innovative projects. Wastewater surveillance has been proven to track and identify contaminants and better understand public health trends broadly, while fully preserving the privacy rights of individuals and communities. “We need to use every tool at our disposal to help combat the opioid epidemic and save lives.  This non-invasive screening of wastewater will allow local public health officials the chance to make data-informed decisions and enable better targeting of prevention and treatment services,” Bilirakis noted.  

The Ensuring Medicaid Continuity for Children in Foster Care Act of 2023 will start to fix a technical glitch in federal statute created by passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 which threatens to keep the most at-risk foster children from being able to access appropriate mental and behavioral health services covered by Medicaid.  In this 2018 law, Congress created a new category for settings delivering trauma-informed treatment to foster care children in a residential setting.  These highly specialized programs, known as Qualified Residential Treatment Programs (QRTPs), offer the opportunity for children who have been severely traumatized to receive the professional help they need to heal and live healthy lives.  QRTPs focus on a holistic approach to treating symptoms of trauma and accompanying behavioral and emotional challenges for children with assessed needs. However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has interpreted the statute to prohibit federal Medicaid reimbursement for residential facilities that house more than 16 persons, by considering them as Institutions for Mental Disease (IMDs), which are prohibited from Medicaid funding.  The Bilirakis bill will allow children in the state foster care system who stay in a QRTP to receive the treatment they need outside of the programs, reestablishing their access to Medicaid services.   “Most children who are placed in the foster care system have experienced significant trauma,”  Congressman Gus Bilirakis remarked. “We need to prevent exacerbation of their situation by ensuring continuity of care in a setting that meets their individual needs.  I am committed to ensuring foster care kids have continued access to quality trauma-informed treatment in a supportive environment that enables them to heal, without losing access to Medicaid services.  I am proud to work across the aisle to start to fix this unintended bureaucratic roadblock and remain committed to working in a bipartisan fashion to ensure children get the appropriate care they need and deserve.”