Sponsors (4)
The bill expands access to behavioral health care and grows the trainee workforce by authorizing supervised trainee services and clearer billing, but it raises fiscal costs, creates potential quality and geographic equity risks, and imposes short‑term administrative burdens as systems adapt.
Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP beneficiaries (including children and youth) gain greater access to covered behavioral health services because supervised advanced psychology trainees can provide and bill for more services.
Advanced psychology trainees (doctoral interns and postdoctoral residents) and the behavioral health workforce benefit from expanded training opportunities and clearer reimbursement pathways, encouraging more providers to participate and increasing workforce capacity over time.
Providers, health systems, and state programs get clearer billing rules, recommended codes/modifiers (including a new 'GC' modifier) and federal technical assistance, which should improve claims accuracy, reimbursement consistency, and reduce state-to-state variation in implementation.
Taxpayers and federal/state programs could face higher Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP spending over time as more trainee‑provided services are reimbursed.
Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP beneficiaries—particularly those with complex or chronic conditions and people in rural areas—may face higher risks to care quality and continued geographic disparities if less‑experienced trainees provide services without the supervisor physically present or if uptake is uneven across states.
Providers, health systems, and CMS/state agencies will incur administrative and implementation costs and may experience short‑term billing errors as they adopt new modifiers, codes, and processes.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Allows Medicare billing for services furnished by defined advanced psychology trainees under general supervision and directs HHS to help states enable Medicaid/CHIP coverage.
Official title: To expand psychological mental and behavioral health services to Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP beneficiaries by permitting reimbursement of psychological services provided by certain supervised psychology trainees, and facilitating the reimbursement of those services.
Introduced July 17, 2025 by Troy Balderson · Last progress July 17, 2025
Allows certain supervised psychology trainees (APA-accredited doctoral interns and postdoctoral residents in supervised licensure programs) to furnish and bill for clinical services under Medicare when provided under the "general supervision" of a licensed clinical psychologist, and directs HHS to create a billing modifier for those services. It also requires HHS to issue guidance to states on how to enable Medicaid and CHIP coverage of services provided by these advanced psychology trainees, including suggested legal mechanisms, billing codes/modifiers, and waiver examples. The bill aims to expand workforce capacity for mental health care by clarifying Medicare coverage mechanics for trainee-provided services and helping states overcome barriers to covering those same services through Medicaid and CHIP within one year of enactment.