© Steph Solis | ssolis@masslive.com/masslive.com/TNS The Massachusetts State House opened two hours late Tuesday because of the snow.

The Massachusetts Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that would bring the state closer to providing behavioral health services that are as accessible as physical health care.

The bill, S.2519, would eliminate the prior authorization requirement for patients suffering acute mental health symptoms who need immediate treatment, rolling out a pilot program for tele-psychiatry in public schools and studying culture competency within the mental health care system.

The bill also creates additional pilot programs to recruit and retain mental health providers in Massachusetts.

“The Massachusetts Senate is living up to our promise to begin to transform how the commonwealth addresses mental health,” said Sen. Julian Cyr, the bill’s lead sponsor and the co-chair of the Joint Committee on Mental Health, “and I think that we have taken a number of steps in this bill to really help people who are struggling to access care.”

The bill passed 38-0 and now moves to the House for consideration.

For its lead proponents, the legislation was personal. Cyr, who was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, often touts the benefits of having a mental health provider and specifically an LGBTQ provider who can help him navigate the challenges of life as a gay man.

“I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression since adolescence. For me, I think it’s because from an early age people thought I was different,” said Cyr, a Truro Democrat. “Therapy helped me manage my anxiety and helped me do things I never thought I could."

Sen. Cindy Friedman, who authored the bill with Cyr, said she found the mental health system to be disconnected, difficult and costly as she sought treatment for her child.

Senate President Karen Spilka said legislation like this could have helped her father, who struggled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after serving in World War II.

”The response to this bill has been overwhelming, and reinforces our assertion that mental health care needs to be for everyone in Massachusetts,” Spilka, an Ashland Democrat, said in a statement after the bill passed.

The Senate bill does not mandate any increased spending on behavioral health services, but it does require that insurers compensate mental health providers at higher levels and that insurers cover the cost of multiple appointments a patient may have on the same day.

Under the bill, the state’s Division of Insurance would oversee how insurance companies implement reforms. Carriers would have to report their progress on complying with the changes annually, and failures to comply with the changes would lead to violations.

Another provision aims to make it easier for providers to accept certain types of insurance. The bill would make insurers streamline the credentialing process for mental health providers. Currently, each insurer has its own form that mental health providers have to fill out and submit. Insurers would also have to approve the forms within 20 days, rather than over several weeks or months.

Altogether, the pilots and studies are projected to cost nearly $6 million.

The bill’s passage comes as Gov. Charlie Baker and Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders promote their own health care bill, which calls for increased spending on primary, geriatric and behavioral health care services.

When Spilka introduced the Senate bill, she said there were so many proposed changes that it warranted its own legislation.

Cyr said a full transformation of behavioral health services will take more than one bill and more than one session.

“We have a tremendously broken, fragmented mental health delivery system ... and it’s going to take some time to get at," he said, “and this is a serious significant step.”

Material from the State House News Service was used in this report.

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