Individuals who are contemplating suicide or suffering other kinds of emotional distress who call the 988 national hotline number may not be getting the help they need.
That’s because a technical snafu often routes their calls to health technicians out of their county, or even out of state, instead of sending their call to the nearest clinic where they can receive hands-on treatment. The flawed system cripples any kind of emergency response for a person experiencing a mental health crisis, even putting the life of the caller at risk, experts say.
The call-routing problems, which have plagued the 988 system since it began operating in July 2022, would be fixed if a bill by U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., using a new technology called geo-routing, is passed by Congress and signed into law.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors endorsed U.S. Senate Bill 3444 on Tuesday and will send a letter of support to the Senate, while pledging to fight for the bill’s passage. On Aug. 8, the board endorsed a companion bill in the House of Representatives by Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Panorama City.
Padilla’s bipartisan bill, introduced on Dec. 7 and co-authored by Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, may have a better chance of being adopted by the Senate but would still need approval by the House and a signature from President Joe Biden.
“This legislation will have real on-the-ground impacts,” said Fifth District Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “I’m confident the White House will weigh in on this. It needs to be fixed.”
Under the federal 988 hotline system, cellphone calls are routed to about 200 call centers using the caller’s area code — which is often not the area code where the person lives. It can send local callers to far off centers in the East Coast, South or Midwest, instead of in Southern California. Often, call centers can’t help the caller, or the call gets disconnected, according to testimony given on Tuesday to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
“That means if you live in Los Angeles County and are calling from a cellphone with a different area code, you won’t be able to access L.A. County’s call centers,” said Fourth District Supervisor Janice Hahn. She said the county has 47 mobile health access teams ready to help callers but they can’t be connected to a caller dialing 988 using a cellphone with an out-of-area number.
“These teams can only be accessed through the L.A. County call center,” Hahn explained. Often, calls get rerouted back from an out-of-state call center to the center nearest the caller, but that can waste precious time. “When someone is having a mental health crisis, minutes matter,” Hahn added.
Over 80 percent of all calls made to the hotline are from wireless phones, the FCC reported in September. Many callers keep their cellphone numbers after they move. Hence, the federal system reads the area code and misdirects the call to that region.
The Padilla bill will direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to require all cellphone carriers to direct 988 calls, and messages left on 988 call lines, to the call center geographically closest to the caller — instead of using the caller’s area code.
The bill would use geo-routing to ping a cell tower near the caller. Then the call would be routed to the local mental health crisis center. A mental health professional on the line would be familiar with county resources and could send a mobile treatment team if needed. The caller’s address or identity would not be revealed because geo-routing is different from geo-location, which identifies a person’s whereabouts.
Another communication breakdown occurs if the call is routed by using the person’s ZIP code. If that person has moved, the crisis counselor can be from the city of an old address, putting help far away.
Operators from the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services group, which handles calls for L.A. County, testified that their staff and volunteers get many callers from out of state, adding even more confusion to the system. Often calls are delayed in the handoff.
The suicide and emotional crisis hotline’s three-digit number is easy to remember and gaining in use. The FCC reported receiving 20 million calls on the hotline since mid-2022.
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