SB1523 Summary: Mental Health Omnibus (Jake's Law)

• Establishes mental health parity requirements for Arizona health care insurers, requiring compliance with the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act and mandating insurers submit reports demonstrating comparable treatment of mental health and medical/surgical benefits.

• Creates a suicide mortality review team within the Department of Health Services to analyze suicide incidence and causes, develop investigation protocols, and assist local suicide mortality review teams in reducing preventable suicides.

• Establishes a children's behavioral health services fund with $8,000,000 appropriation to provide behavioral health services to uninsured or underinsured school-aged children referred by educational institutions with parental consent.

• Prohibits health care insurers from denying mental health or substance use disorder claims for minors solely because services were provided in a school or court-ordered setting, with uncovered out-of-network services paid from the children's behavioral health services fund.

• Requires health care institutions to implement discharge protocols and provide crisis service information for patients with suicidal ideation, and mandates the Department of Insurance create a mental health parity advisory committee and web resources for consumer complaints.