Concerning obligations of mental health professionals.
Summary
Amends the Involuntary Treatment Act to provide that:
A mental health professional or an individual health care provider (professional/provider) providing mental health services to a patient has a duty to warn of a patient's violent behavior only if the patient has communicated to the professional/provider an actual threat of physical violence that poses a serious or imminent threat to the health or safety of a reasonably identifiable person or persons.
This duty to warn is discharged if reasonable efforts are made to communicate the threat to the person identified and law enforcement personnel.
No professional/provider is liable for civil damages for discharging the duty to warn or, having discharged the duty to warn, for failing to predict, warn of, or take reasonable precautions to provide protections from a patient's violent behavior so long as the professional/provider acted in good faith and without gross negligence.
From the Engrossed House Bill Analysis 2017 (ESB 5800), written by the Legislature's nonpartisan staff. Read the full report ↗
Did not passDid not pass · passed Senate, stalled in House