Michigan Bills To Provide Outpatient Treatment For Misdemeanor Defendants Advance To Full House

Michigan Advance

January 21 2026

The Michigan House Health Policy Committee voted on Wednesday to advance a three-bill package — all unanimously supported by the committee members — that would divert certain misdemeanor defendants to assisted outpatient treatment for defendants with particular mental health concerns, as well as update standards and procedures for referrals and mediation of disputes in patient treatment.

In a December hearing of the committee, Judge Milton Mack, a retired Wayne County probate judge and state court administrator, as well as the chair of the Mental Health Diversion Council, explained that the state’s mental health code was “designed to wait for crisis before acting, which meant intervention often came too late.”

But with access to advanced outpatient treatment, as these bills would provide, Mack explained, hospitalizations and incarcerations have dropped significantly in counties that have already implemented similar policies, including Calhoun County and Genesee County.

“What this bill does is modernize Michigan’s mental health code to reflect today’s clinical and public safety needs in which we’re confronting across the nation,” said Rep. Donni Steele (R-Lake Orion), who sponsored one of the bills. “This clarifies peace officer responsibilities of the individuals that are in protective custody and ensures timely clinical evaluation or intervention before a crisis may occur.”

“We’re not waiting for imminent threat,” added Rep. Mark Tisdel (R-Rochester), a sponsor of another of the bills. “It’s that early intervention. Just think of it like cancer screening.”

The bills would also increase the availability of mediation options for resolving disputes over mental health treatment, which Mack explained generally reduces the number of times that courts are required to intervene in mental health treatment cases.

Mack also responded to a question from Rep. Brenda Carter (D-Pontiac) about potentially increased financial burdens for patients, especially those who are uninsured, saying that the goal would be to reduce hospitalizations and avoid unnecessary costs.

“What we’re doing is expanding the use of outpatient treatment to avoid hospitalization,” he said. “The risk of unnecessary hospitalization is fairly low considering the fact that we’ve gone from 550,000 hospital events nationwide to about 30,000 nationwide.”

Kate Dahlstrom, the president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Grand Traverse, expressed support for the majority of the content of the bills in the December hearing. Dahlstrom, however, also expressed concerns about the exclusion of the individual and their families from decision-making power in treatment plans, as well as granting sole discretion to local community mental health agencies to determine which services to provide.

“What these bills are going to do is enable families and providers of care to seek help before it’s too late,” Mack said. “The most important benefit is to the individual who suffers from mental illness, because early intervention and relying on community treatment is the best hope for recovery.”

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