Senate Bill 1002, a measure authored by State Senator Anthony Portantino, seeks to address California’s mental health provider shortage. SB 1002 authorizes qualified social workers to offer assessment and psychotherapy for mental or behavioral health issues in order to provide additional resources to injured workers in need of immediate care. Gov. Newsom signed the measure into law.

“Mental health needs among workers have increased significantly,” stated Senator Portantino. “However, the number of professionals who are available to provide care have decreased. SB 1002 will enhance our state’s ability to address the mental and behavioral health care needs of California’s workforce by including licensed social workers in the workers’ compensation provider networks. I thank the governor for his signature on this important health care measure.”

Injured workers must often wait for extensive periods before seeking full psychiatric treatment due to a scarcity of available providers. These delays in health care and evaluation often result in the injured worker’s delayed return to work and increased costs to the system. States such as Texas and New York have mobilized Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSWs) to help fill the gap, but workers’ compensation law in California does not provide for listing of LCSWs in the networks as providers that are permitted to assess, evaluate and treat mental illness among affected workers.

SB 1002 authorizes qualified LCSWs to provide assessment and psychotherapy to affected workers suffering from mental or behavioral health issues, thereby providing additional and readily available resources within their licensure to injured workers in need of immediate mental health consultation and services. LCSWs who meet the licensure requirements of the State Board of Behavioral Sciences can be added to the list of available provider types. This will enable the primary treating physician (PTP) to view LCSWs in the list of available mental health providers, thereby allowing the PTP to directly refer an injured worker to a LCSW in the same manner as the PTP may currently refer an injured worker to a psychologist or psychiatrist for work-related mental health services. This bill does not authorize LCSWs to act as a treating physician in the workers’ compensation system – it only authorizes LCSWs to evaluate and treat injured workers only upon referral by a physician.