Clozapine Legislation Proposed in Arizona

Members of The Angry Moms in Arizona have collaborated with Arizona State Senator Lauren Kuby to create a legislative bill increasing services and support for clozapine patients.

This is the first legislation of its kind, requiring insurers to appropriately reimburse providers who use clozapine, address administrative burdens, and provide adequate support measures for individuals who need clozapine.

States have statutes relating to medications like insulin, glucose monitors, epinephrine, dialysis, and naloxone. Legislation surrounding access to clozapine is long overdue. Our hope is that this proposed bill will be heard by the Arizona legislature and that other states will make similar efforts.

Here is a link to Arizona’s SB1720:

https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/57leg/1R/bills/SB1720P.pdf

Arizona Senate Bill SB1720 proposes insurers to provide:

• Clozapine-specific training for psychiatric providers, with increased compensation for administrative costs and support for managing clozapine side effects.

• Access to available technologies like finger-stick ANC devices, salivary gland treatments, and genetic testing for neutropenia-associated genes.

• Increased community support, such as in-home assistance for blood tests, medication delivery and assistance.

• Requirements for inpatient and outpatient psychiatric pharmacies to stock clozapine, with authorization for emergency doses outside the standard refill schedule.

• Extending of these provisions to pediatric and elderly populations, individuals with developmental disabilities and for clozapine patients in incarcerated settings.

Expected benefits of this bill in Arizona:

• Reduced hospitalizations, treatment costs, patient mortality, and violence.

• $100M annual savings in hospitalization costs when fully implemented [1]

• Free up the equivalent of 200 psychiatric beds in Arizona.

• At least 10 SMI-related suicides in Arizona would be prevented each year [2]

Regardless of whether all or part of this bill becomes Arizona state law, we hope that our legislative advocacy will help inform healthcare policy changes for serious psychiatric conditions.

Those of us within The Angry Moms who monitor our website inbox and social media groups frequently receive heartbreaking stories from mothers whose children have died, and no one offered them clozapine.

We must do better.

The Angry Moms

[1] Gören Jessica L, et al. "The Business Case for Expanded Clozapine Utilization." Psychiatric Services (Washington, D.C.) vol. 67,11 (2016): 1197-1205.

[2] Meltzer Herbert Y, et al. "Clozapine treatment for suicidality in schizophrenia: International Suicide Prevention Trial (InterSePT)." Archives of general psychiatry vol. 60,1 (2003): 82–91.