Senate Moves to Reauthorize Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act

U.S. Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Todd Young (R-IN), Jack Reed (D-RI), and Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, a comprehensive law Kaine, Young, Reed and Marshall successfully passed in 2022 to help prevent suicide, burnout, and mental and behavioral health conditions among health care professionals.

The law has already provided $100 million in funding for mental health care for providers across the country, including $5.6 million in federal funding for Virginia providers at UVA Health, Virginia Commonwealth University, and George Mason University. But provisions of the law that made this funding possible expired last year. The Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Reauthorization Act would reauthorize these grant programs for five years.

Specifically, Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Reauthorization Act would:

• Reauthorize a grant program for health care organizations and professional associations for employee education on strategies to reduce burnout, peer-support programming, and mental and behavioral health treatment for five years. Communities with a shortage of health care workers, rural communities, and those experiencing burnout due to administrative burdens, such as lengthy paperwork, will be prioritized.
• Reauthorize a grant program for health profession schools or other institutions to train health care workers and students in strategies to prevent suicide, burnout, mental health conditions, and substance use disorders for five years.
• Reauthorize a national evidence-based education and awareness campaign. Currently, the campaign provides hospital and health system leaders with evidence-informed solutions to reduce health care worker burnout. Reauthorization will provide resources for the campaign to continue and expand beyond its current scope.

Full text of the bill is available below:

[source]