The Rhode Island Senate on Thursday released its third annual bundle of health care bills for this year’s legislative session, with proposals from ensuring the 988 hotline stays live to guardrails on AI usage in psychotherapy to initial funding for a proposed medical school at the University of Rhode Island (URI).
The 17-bill package is nearly double the size of last year’s collection, which sported nine pieces of legislation.
“These are complex issues we’re facing,” Senate President Valarie Lawson said at a State House event Thursday introducing the package. “And this is a long, long process.”
Lawson said the chamber’s priorities reflect listening to consumers and primary care providers over the last couple of years as well as the work of a special Senate-led commission which determined in January that a medical school at URI would help alleviate the state’s primary care workforce shortage.
Senate Committee Health and Human Services Chair Melissa Murray joined Lawson and bill sponsors in the Senate Lounge to present their lawmaking to-do list, which Murray described as orbiting three major themes:
One suite of bills aim to support people in crisis by improving access to behavioral health resources.
Another tranche would boost the Ocean State’s health care workforce.
The last set seeks to protect patients and providers via initiatives like further regulation of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and updated vaccination schedules for children.
“While we know that solving the crisis cannot be accomplished through any single piece of legislation, or any one collection of bills, those being highlighted today build on our past progress and help address the most pressing needs of this moment,” Murray said in a statement. “Achieving our goals will be a long-haul effort, and our chamber remains truly committed to seeing it through.”
Before Thursday, six of the package bills had already been introduced and await hearings in their respective committees. The remaining 11 bills were introduced Thursday and await hearings.
Stronger foundations for people in crisis
Three bills aim to strengthen the infrastructure for crisis support in Rhode Island. One Murray-sponsored bill would codify the state’s 988 hotline — and BH Link, the mental health hotline’s local operator — and require the state to fully fund both programs if federal monies should evaporate.
The 988 hotline was established under the federal National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2020 and went live in 2022, with each state offering its own take on the federally-funded call-routing and crisis response network. BH Link also runs a walk-in service for behavioral health issues. According to a Senate press release, more than 90% of calls to 988 are resolved over the phone, with no emergency department visit needed for the caller.
Senate leaders present their 2026 health care bill agenda in the Senate lounge at the Rhode Island State House on Thursday, March 12, 2026. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
One of the people who has benefited from 988 is Steven Hoard, who told the audience at the Senate unveiling about his loved one’s experience with 988 in December 2025.
“My son called me — drinking, depressed, high anxiety, locked himself in his basement of his home,” Hoard said. “I explained to him that we needed to get him some assistance and help. But he was adamant, ‘Please don’t call 911, I don’t need my neighbors to see everybody here.’”
Instead, Hoard said he called 988, and heard “on the other side of that line…someone with compassion, empathy, professionalism, that was truly caring about my child.” The hotline helped dispatch a mobile crisis unit clinician who spoke with Hoard’s son.
Hoard said his son checked himself in for treatment two days later. If 911 came instead of 988 to help his son, “the situation would have ended much, much differently,” he said “So I implore you, please fund 988. It will save lives.”
A separate proposal from Lawson would codify the children’s Mobile Response and Stabilization Services (MRSS), empowering it with coverage under Medicaid and an additional $900,000 appropriation in the fiscal year 2027 budget.
The crisis response program for children is a 24/7, free crisis response hotline like 988 that caters to youth ages 2 to 21. The service fielded 849 cases between October 2024 and October 2025, according to a Senate news release that reported 80% of cases were “stabilized” and connected to appropriate community resources without a visit to the emergency department.
Under Lawson’s bill, the appropriation would increase to $1 million in fiscal year 2028, with the extra funding aimed at ensuring access for uninsured and underinsured kids.
A complementary bill by Sen. Alana DiMario, a Narragansett Democrat, would further bolster the response program for kids in crisis by specifying a minimum reimbursement rate for commercial insurers so they can cover the service. DiMario’s bill would amend the law she helped get passed in 2025, one which required payers to reimburse coverage of services for 24/7 youth crisis response.
A smartphone displays the ChatGPT app. Chatbots are the subject of two health care bills from Sen. Lori Urso of Pawtucket aiming to regulate their use in psychotherapy settings. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
An all-caps warning for AI chatbots
A pair of bills from Democratic Sen. Lori Urso of Pawtucket urge the state to exercise greater control over the impact chatbots may have on mental health.
“It’s important to kind of use the runway we have to get ahead of the crisis that could befall us if someone were to utilize chatbot technology,” Urso said, adding that chatbots’ “sycophant nature” may conceal, minimize or worsen suicidal ideation or thoughts of self-harm.
One bill would bar AI companion models from being used in psychotherapy sessions that are recorded or transcribed unless the patient or their representative give consent.
The second bill wants to regulate the companionship offered by AI chatbots, and would mandate that chat service providers institute safety protocols for users who express suicidal thoughts, a desire for self-harm, or other injurious behaviors.
Urso’s bill also outlines a specific and recurring label that would need to be attached to conversations with AI chatbots, according to the bill text. This notification would be attached “at the beginning of any AI companion interaction and at least every three (3) hours for continuing AI companion interactions hereafter.”
The bill specifies that the warning would be verbally communicated by the chatbot, or relayed “in bold and capitalized letters of at least sixteen (16) point type.”
The warning would read: “THE AI COMPANION (OR NAME OF THE AI COMPANION) IS A COMPUTER PROGRAM AND NOT A HUMAN BEING. IT IS UNABLE TO FEEL HUMAN EMOTION.’”
Three bills in the Rhode Island Senate’s 2026 health care package would further regulate pharmacy benefit managers. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
PBMs, PBMs, PBMs
A trio of bills related to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) seeks to further regulate the pharmaceutical middlemen. Legislation which has clamped down on the not-always-transparent activities of these businesses which typically manage pharmacy coverage for health insurers has been a constant source of legislative priority for lawmakers like Sen. Linda Ujifusa of Portsmouth, whose previous PBM legislation has seen success and even a recently concluded enforcement action by the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office.
In this year’s package, Ujifusa has a proposal which would require the state’s auditor general to embark on a study to “determine whether Rhode Island would benefit from adopting a consolidated prescription drug management program within the Medicaid program,” according to the bill text.
One of the things the bill asks for the auditor general to examine is how managed care organizations use multiple PBMs and drug formularies, a system it describes as “representing Rhode Island’s current status quo.”
Another bill by Sen. Robert Britto, an East Providence Democrat, would impose new accountability and transparency requirements on PBMs, mandating more insight into “rebates of any kind, inflationary payments, credits, clawbacks, fees, grants, chargebacks, reimbursements, or other benefits received by the pharmacy benefit manager.”
Legislation by Sen. Peter Apollonio Jr., a Warwick Democrat, would require PBMs to obtain certificates of authority from the Department of Business Regulation if they want to do business in Rhode Island.
Showing some love for the primary care workforce
The legislative agenda also follows the recommendations of the URI medical school commission, which concluded in January after a year-and-a-half investigation. A bill by Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski, a South Kingstown Democrat, would pony up the initial $5 million for the school to get off the ground, with the money coming from general revenue. Fiscal year 2028 would see an investment of $7 million and fiscal year 2029 would see an investment of $8 million. That adds up to $20 million, which is the amount recommended by the commission for an initial state investment. (URI would still need to secure additional funding for the school to open.)
Sen. Pamela Lauria, the Barrington Democrat who co-chaired the URI medical school commission, has a resolution in the package which follows from the committee’s recommendations: creating another study commission, this one focused on primary care in Rhode Island, and how to keep providers and medical graduates living and working in the state.
A bill from Senate President Pro Tempore Hanna Gallo, a Cranston Democrat, would fashion a loan repayment track specifically for primary care providers within the existing Health Professional Loan Repayment Program. Eligible physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners could receive two years of loan repayment assistance, under the proposal.
Another Lauria bill would create a scholarship program for med students who commit to work as primary care providers in Rhode Island after graduation. Eligible students would be enrollees in medical school, nursing school or physician assistant programs.
Also on the Senate’s wishlist this year:
Malpractice protections. A bill by Lauria, which the Senate passed in 2024 and 2025, would allow providers to apologize or express sympathy to patients and families, without the risk of these claims becoming admissions of liability in malpractice-related lawsuits. Another bill related to malpractice comes from Sen. Mark McKenney, a Warwick Democrat, and would create a 13-member commission to study how malpractice claims affect medical providers and their costs. The commission, if created, would have its findings due by Oct. 1, 2027.
Vaccinations. An Ujifusa bill would ensure the state health department sets child and adult vaccination schedules. It would also require insurers and Medicaid to cover all immunizations — sans cost-sharing for patients — if they are included in the health department’s guidance. The bill would take effect at the beginning of 2027.
Behavioral care placement. A bill by Sen. Brian Thompson, a Woonsocket Democrat, would require insurers to cover at least a week of post-acute care without the need for prior authorization, starting Jan. 1, 2027. Another Murray bill would create a program for people with complex behavioral health needs and enhance per-diem Medicaid payments to long-term care facilities that serve patients with significant behavioral needs.
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