Federal Legislation and Advocacy Policies

Spring 2008 Legislative Efforts

Two primary issues were the focus of consideration as Dr. Christopher M. Habben, KAMFT President and Jennifer Jay, KAMFT President-Elect, endeavored to meet with congressional representatives from Kansas during the Spring 2008 Leadership Conference. The first issue involves efforts to improve access to Medicare-covered health benefits by recognizing state licensed Marriage and Family Therapists and the second issue involves making family therapists accessible to children in the schools by being listed as providers of mental health services under No Child Left Behind law.

• Marriage and Family Therapists are not listed as Medicare covered providers even though the federal government currently recognizes five mental health disciplines as core mental health professionals including Marriage and Family Therapists.
• Marriage and Family Therapists are not seeking to expand the scope of mental health services nor are they are seeking to expand their own scope of practice. Instead, MFT’s are simply trying to correct an inequity restricting beneficiaries’ access to a particular type of quality mental health provider.
• Currently, federal law omits family therapists from the list of professionals identified in the No Child Left Behind Law as qualified to provide mental health services. Consequently MFT’s are often excluded from schools systems and students are denied access to a mental health discipline whose primary treatment method has proven effective with school children.