No. SB 1560
Filed under Healthcare.
Medical Placement for High-acuity Children; Requiring that specific needs of a high-acuity child be considered when determining a child’s best interest; revising the role of and services provided by a Child Protection Team; providing for the placement of a high-acuity child; revising the goals of multidisciplinary teams; revising the participants in a multidisciplinary team; requiring a licensed health care professional to perform a medical screening for certain conditions on a child who is removed from the home and maintained in an out-of-home placement, etc.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDA new legal category, "high-acuity child," covers youths with severe medical, developmental, or behavioral needs. A new law requires a 72-hour team review, a court petition, and placement in specialized medical care instead of standard foster care.
Judges must immediately place a high-acuity child in medical care once evaluators confirm the diagnosis, even when other placement options exist. This bypasses the usual order that favors relatives and foster homes first.
A caregiver's normal authority over a child's activities gives way to medical necessity until a court finds the child stabilized. Placements are capped at 90 days unless a court finds clear and convincing evidence to extend them.
Screenings for children removed from home must now check for mental, disability, and behavioral conditions, not just injury and illness. Medicaid, Children's Medical Services, and disability waiver programs gain new duties to fund and prioritize these placements.
AICreates section 39.4078, a new act setting up specialized 'medical placement' -- acute or subacute care beds, therapeutic medical foster care, or specialized residential treatment -- for children classified as high-acuity, with mandatory assessment, team review, and court-approval timelines.
AIThe new section states that its own procedures control whenever another statute conflicts with meeting a high-acuity child's needs, giving section 39.4078 precedence over other parts of the dependency code in those situations.
AIOnce a child is identified as high-acuity, the department or its contractors must follow section 39.4078 and place the child in a medical placement if eligible, instead of working through the usual order that starts with relatives and foster homes.
AIIf a court-ordered psychiatric, psychological, or developmental evaluation finds a child meets the high-acuity criteria, the judge must immediately order the child into a medical placement, even when other placement options remain available.
AIA medical placement cannot run longer than 90 consecutive days unless the court gives express written consent, based on clear and convincing evidence that the placement is still medically necessary and still the least restrictive option available.
AIFor a high-acuity child, a caregiver's ordinary discretion over daily activities gives way to whatever medical placement or transition the child's condition requires, until a court finds the underlying medical condition stabilized.
AIThe medical screening every removed child receives must now check for mental, disability, and behavioral health conditions in addition to injury, illness, and communicable disease, which is all the prior law required.
AIA Child Protection Team may prioritize placing a high-acuity child into a specialized facility and may require another entity to provide services for the child, in both cases even when that action falls outside the team's normal role.