Mental health: involuntary commitment

The law standardizes county procedures for designating professionals to act under California’s involuntary-treatment law. It also makes emergency physicians an eligible discipline for designation.

What the law does ​

• Requires each county behavioral health director to establish and implement procedures for professional designation and training under Section 5150.
• Requires those procedures to cover eligible licenses, disciplines and experience; training and testing; application, approval and renewal; and compliance monitoring.
• Requires written notice explaining a designation denial or revocation to the requester and the affected individual.
• Allows designated mobile-crisis-team members and designated professionals to transport people taken into custody under Section 5150.
• Requires counties to include emergency physicians among disciplines eligible for designation, while applying the same training, approval and revocation processes.
• Requires Sacramento County, if it develops these procedures, to issue a written policy and designate qualified City of Sacramento mobile-crisis-team members or professional persons upon the city’s written request.
• Provides for reimbursement if the Commission on State Mandates finds the new local duties create state-mandated costs.

Who it affects ​

• County behavioral health directors and county-designated mental-health professionals.
• Emergency physicians working in general acute-care hospital emergency departments.
• Mobile crisis team members and people subject to a Section 5150 custody hold.
• The City and County of Sacramento under the bill’s Sacramento-specific provisions.