NASW-Illinois Chapter membership helps us to push for legislation that benefit Illinois social workers and the clients they serve. As the largest membership association in Illinois advocating on behalf of social workers, consider adding your voice to our efforts and join/renew your NASW membership today.
SPRINGFIELD—Thanks this week to Illinois State Representative (and NASW member!) Lindsey LaPointe who was able to push House Bill 4475 out of the Illinois House this week. An initiative of Thresholds and supported by the NASW-Illinois Chapter, this bill would accomplish several things:
Set a rate floor that commercial insurers must pay for mental health and substance use disorder (MH/SUD) services to bring them in line with rates paid for other healthcare services (141% of Medicare and a similar standard for non-Medicare services) to incentivize providers to join insurance networks.
Require insurers to shorten the contracting process for providers applying to be in-network with an insurer from 4 to 6 months to 60 days.
Require coverage of same-day MH/SUD services.
Require coverage of 60-minute therapy without requiring more onerous. documentation than 45-minute therapy and prohibits more frequent audits.
Allows an MSW working toward their LCSW (i.e., collecting 3,000 hours of supervised clinical professional experience) to bill under the supervision of a fully licensed provider.
As the bill now moves to the Illinois Senate, we encourage all social workers to contact their state senators to pass this meaningful bill. You can do this by going to our Advocacy Alerts page, entering your zipcode and address into the "View Your Election Center," going to "View Officials," and composing a message to your state senator.
For more advocacy-related news from the NASW-Illinois Chapter, visit the "Advocacy" sub-tab on our "News" page. Or check out our Bill Tracker which shows all of the bills the NASW-Illinois Chapter is tracking for the current Illinois legislative session.
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is the largest membership organization of professional social workers in the world, with over 120,000 members. The NASW-Illinois Chapter is one of the association's largest chapters representing over 20,000 licensed Illinois social workers and school social workers, with over 5,000 active members. NASW strives to advance social work careers, grow social work businesses, and protect the profession.