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Collins and Courtney partner in effort to aid child and adolescent mental health needs

by jmaloni

Submitted

Thu, Apr 16th 2015 05:00 pm

Congressmen Chris Collins, R-NY-27, and Joe Courtney, CT-02, today issued the following statements after introducing the bipartisan Ensuring Children's Access to Specialty Care Act:

"Mental illness impacts one in every five of America's young people and, unfortunately, we are facing an extreme shortage of health care professionals equipped to care for these individuals," Collins said. "To combat this problem, I joined with Congressman Courtney in introducing bipartisan legislation to create incentives for doctors to practice specialized pediatric care in underserved medical sectors like child psychiatry."

"Access to pediatric health services is critical for families nationwide, but many families find themselves too far from the physician specialists their children need," Courtney said. "This proposal would help draw more pediatric doctors into specialties that treat children and adolescents with serious physical, mental and behavioral conditions, specifically in rural and underserved areas. I thank Congressman Collins for his leadership on this issue, and I look forward to working with him to advance this important legislation."

This legislation would amend the current federal program, the National Health Service Corps, which provides loan relief to various health care professionals, to include pediatric subspecialists. It utilizes existing funds to provide financial relief to an underserved medical service area and is cost neutral. Additionally, it is endorsed by the American Association of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and the Child Neurology Society.

Full text of the legislation can be read here: <https://chriscollins.house.gov/sites/chriscollins.house.gov/files/COLLNY_007_xml.pdf>.

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