MOORHEAD -- For around 30 years, people on parole and probation have been excluded from an agreement between Minnesota and North Dakota for mental health care.
A pair of bills moving through the Minnesota and North Dakota legislatures seeks to change that fact.
Bills sponsored by Sen. Rob Kupec, D-Moorhead, in Minnesota and Sen. Tim Mathern, D-Fargo, in North Dakota both seek to expand the states' existing policies allowing people who have state health care benefits, including Medicaid, to use those benefits to pay for mental health care in neighboring states.
Mathern passed the current law with former Minnesota Rep. Kevin Goodno, R-Moorhead, in the early 1990s. That bill excluded people on parole, an early release from prison on the condition of good behavior, or probation, the suspension of a prison sentence for a person convicted of a crime on the condition of good behavior, from the agreement between the two states.
Today, there is a greater understanding that many people in corrections have a mental illness or substance use disorder, Mathern said.
"We've learned since then that many of these people actually have conditions requiring treatment, and we've learned too that if they don't get treatment, we're just cycling through corrections or jails and our prisons for their entire lives," Mathern said.
If the bills pass and are signed into law in both states, the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services and Minnesota Department of Human Services would develop a cooperative agreement allowing for people to retain their benefits in their home state while seeking treatment in a different state, Mathern said.
In North Dakota, the bill was passed by both the House and Senate. If approved by North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong, it will be signed into law. In the North Dakota House, the bill was carried by Rep. LaurieBeth Hager, D-Fargo, and Rep. Eric Murphy, R-Grand Forks.
In Minnesota, the bill was passed by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday, March 4. It did not have a house file in Minnesota as of Friday, March 7.
Under the present law, when somebody on parole or probation receives state health benefits, they need to seek mental health care in their home state to have it covered.
For people in Moorhead, Prairie St. John's, a psychiatric hospital in Fargo, is across state lines, just a stone's throw away, Kupec said.
"Literally you could throw a rock from Minnesota and hit the building," Kupec said.
But if a hospital has to discharge a patient from Moorhead in this situation to a mental health facility, they have to find one in Minnesota, he said.
It is a situation that Prairie St. John's sees often, CEO Ty Hegland told committee members in the March 4 hearing. The 132-bed psychiatric hospital receives 12,000 referrals for service, with 50% coming from Minnesota. Last year, around 1,500 people had to be turned away because of the limitations between the states, he said.
"People who are afflicted by probation, parole, clearly they've earned their sentence, but the last thing that we want to do as a provider, or as citizens, is increase the severity of their mental illness by not being able to provide them timely access," Hegland said.
An agreement between the states would not just see people from Minnesota seeking care in North Dakota. With the changes, people on parole or probation seeking medical detox services could go to the Clay County Withdrawal Management and Detox Facility, Mathern said.
"With these laws being passed, Fargo and Moorhead can use their services as if they were all together in one state," Mathern said.
The change would reduce recidivism rates, saving resources in the correctional system, while improving the quality of life for people with mental health and substance use disorders, he said.
The bill does not only allow for Minnesota and North Dakota to have an agreement, Kupec said.
"Other states could enter the compact too, but because we're kind of the biggest urban area on a border, it impacts us more," Kupec said.