Title: TEST Act
Policy area: Health

Summary:
Testing, Evaluating, and Strengthening Treatments Act or the TEST Act
This bill reauthorizes through FY2022 the National Mental Health and Substance Use Policy Laboratory grant program and otherwise revises the program, including by adding a matching funds requirement.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2626 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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115th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 2626

 To clarify the requirements for receiving certain grants through the 
      National Mental Health and Substance Use Policy Laboratory.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 22, 2018

Mr. Young (for himself and Mr. Cassidy) introduced the following bill; 
     which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, 
                     Education, Labor, and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To clarify the requirements for receiving certain grants through the 
      National Mental Health and Substance Use Policy Laboratory.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Testing, Evaluating, and 
Strengthening Treatments Act'' or the ``TEST Act''.

SEC. 2. NATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE USE POLICY LABORATORY 
              GRANT PROGRAM.

    Section 501A(e) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 290aa-
0(e)) is amended--
            (1) in paragraph (1)--
                    (A) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A)--
                            (i) by striking ``organizations to 
                        develop'' and inserting ``or private 
                        organizations to create, develop, implement, 
                        replicate, or take to scale promising''; and
                            (ii) by striking ``for--'' and inserting 
                        ``to--'';
                    (B) by striking subparagraphs (A) and (B) and 
                inserting the following:
                    ``(A) enhance the prevention, diagnosis, 
                intervention, and treatment of, and recovery from, 
                mental illness, serious emotional disturbances, 
                substance use disorders, and co-occurring illness or 
                disorders; or
                    ``(B) integrate or coordinate physical health 
                services and mental and substance use disorder 
                services.'';
            (2) by redesignating paragraphs (2) and (3) as paragraphs 
        (4) and (7), respectively;
            (3) by inserting after paragraph (1) the following:
            ``(2) Description of grants.--The grants described in 
        paragraph (1) shall include--
                    ``(A) early-phase grants to fund the development, 
                implementation, and feasibility testing of an 
                intervention, which prior research suggests has 
                promise;
                    ``(B) mid-phase grants to fund implementation and a 
                rigorous evaluation of an intervention that has been 
                successfully implemented under an early-phase grant 
                described in subparagraph (A) or other effort meeting 
                similar criteria, for the purpose of measuring the 
                intervention's impact on important outcomes, such as 
                addiction and mental illness, as well as its cost 
                effectiveness, if feasible, using existing 
                administrative data; and
                    ``(C) expansion grants to fund implementation and a 
                rigorous replication evaluation of an intervention that 
                has been found to produce statistically significant, 
                sizable, and important impacts under a mid-phase grant 
                described in subparagraph (B) or other effort meeting 
                similar criteria, for the purposes of--
                            ``(i) determining whether such impacts can 
                        be successfully reproduced and sustained over 
                        time; and
                            ``(ii) identifying the conditions under 
                        which the intervention is most effective.
            ``(3) Criteria.--In awarding grants under this subsection, 
        the Assistant Secretary shall employ broad eligibility criteria 
        regarding the content or approach of the proposed 
        interventions, and use the promise of the prior research or 
        evidence as the main factor in selecting interventions for 
        award.'';
            (4) by inserting after paragraph (4), as so redesignated, 
        the following:
            ``(5) Evaluation.--Each recipient of a mid-phase grant 
        described in paragraph (2)(B) or an expansion grant described 
        in paragraph (2)(C) shall conduct a rigorous, third-party 
        evaluation that employs experimental designs using random 
        assignment, when feasible, and other research methodologies 
        that allow for the strongest possible causal inferences when 
        random assignment is not feasible, to determine the 
        effectiveness of the intervention carried out under such grant.
            ``(6) Matching funds.--In order to receive a grant under 
        this subsection, an eligible entity shall demonstrate that the 
        eligible entity will provide matching funds, in cash or through 
        in-kind contributions, from Federal, State, local, or private 
        sources in an amount equal to 10 percent of the funds provided 
        under such grant, except that the Assistant Secretary may waive 
        the matching funds requirement, on a case-by-case basis, upon a 
        showing of exceptional circumstances, such as--
                    ``(A) difficulty of raising matching funds for a 
                program to serve a rural area; or
                    ``(B) difficulty of raising funds on tribal 
                land.''; and
            (5) in paragraph (7), as so redesignated, by striking 
        ``There are authorized to be appropriated--'' and all that 
        follows through the period at the end and inserting ``To carry 
        out this section, there are authorized to be appropriated 
        $14,000,000 for the period of fiscal years 2018 through 
        2022.''.
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