WASHINGTON -- A National Football League player joined mental health experts and elected officials at a Senate committee meeting to push for improved access to comprehensive mental health and substance abuse services.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, noted that despite the $75 billion spent on mental health services across Medicaid and Medicare in 2014, almost four in ten Americans with serious mental illness, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, did not receive treatment, according to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

"Patients and their advocates say the national mental health system has been drowning for a long time not from flood waters, but from neglect," Hatch said, during the late April hearing.

But Linda Rosenberg, MSW, president and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health, corrected Hatch, noting that there's plenty of attention paid to mental health issues. She cited the widely reported CDC data detailing the 25% rise in suicide rates over the last 15 years, and the spotlight on mental health on the presidential campaign trail as examples.

"There is attention to mental illness everywhere we look," she said. "But attention is not enough."

Rosenberg and other witnesses, including Brandon Marshall, a 32-year-old wide receiver for the New York Jets, urged senators to make investing in bringing change to mental health services a priority.

Rosenberg expressed her frustration with policymakers' continued reliance on grants instead of long-term, widespread investments.

"When we have cancer or heart disease, getting access to chemotherapy or a stent doesn't depend upon a local clinic having a grant. Why are mental illnesses and addictions different?," she said.

She also expressed concern that hospital beds remain the focus of most discussion about mental health instead of broad-based systemic reform.

"Beds can never be effective in a vacuum ... only community-based services prevent re-admission," she said.

She pointed out that most clinics lack the funds to hire skilled staff or to invest in the kinds of technology that could extend the reach of evidence-based intervention to those in need.

To that end, Rosenberg pressed the committee to support the Excellence in Mental Health Act, introduced by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). The bill aims to advance integrated and coordinated care through Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHC) that provide mental health, substance use services, and primary care screening, as well as 24-hour crisis service.

Rosenberg urged the committee to allow all 24 states seeking to participate in the Excellence Act demonstration -- the bill currently includes only eight states -- and to enable the remaining 26 states to begin outlining their own plans to join the program.

Marshall also addressed the committee about the need for reforming the mental health services.

Marshall co-founded Project 375, a nonprofit that focuses on integrating mental health prevention services into every school in the country. He started Project 375 after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in 2011.

Marshall acknowledged the limitations of the mental health workforce and said he's begun advocating for better telehealth services.

"We need technology to be able to [fill in] the gap to help our professionals, our doctors and our government, to get the people the help they now need," he said.

Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Stabenow also shared personal stories of their families struggles with mental illness. Wyden's late brother had schizophrenia and Stabenow's late father had bipolar disorder. Wyden said his brother, a Medicaid beneficiary, lived in half-way houses and struggled with law enforcement.

First, he emphasized the obvious need for integration of services and care coordination between mental health and social service.

"It doesn't make much sense to tell a person struggling with a [mental] illness that they're on their own managing treatments, figuring out what specialists to see, scheduling appointments, and handling medications," Wyden said.

Second, he emphasized the need for establishing partnerships between law enforcement and mental health services, highlighting efforts in Portland to train police officers to handle mental health crises safely. Finally, he spoke of the importance of prevention by providing better interventions earlier, before an individual's mental health or substance use problems escalate.

Currently much of the $75 billion Medicaid and Medicare spends on mental health is directed toward emergency department visits and jail time, Wyden said.

"In my view, if you can begin to shift some of that funding to the three priorities I've mentioned, preventing mental illness, better coordination of services and linking law enforcement with mental health, you'll see many more Americans being in a position to manage their mental illness and living healthier lives," Wyden said.

"This is going to take bipartisan teamwork," he added. "The kind of bipartisan approach that Sen. Stabenow is working on ... we have been talking about this for a long time, and it's time to move forward and actually put in place these new priorities."