2025 Vermont Statutes
Title 1 - General Provisions
Chapter 3 - Construction of Statutes
§ 151. Behavioral health
§ 151. Behavioral health
“Behavioral health” means any behavioral condition bearing on health, including stress-linked physical symptoms, patient activation, and health behaviors that can be addressed through support, counseling, change techniques, coaching, and other interventions. As used in the Vermont Statutes Annotated, the term does not include mental health conditions or substance use disorders. The General Assembly recognizes that using the term “behavioral health” to describe mental health conditions or substance use disorders has a stigmatizing impact, which may deter individuals from seeking health care for those conditions, but also recognizes that some jurisdictions interpret the term to incorporate those conditions and that therefore it may be necessary under limited circumstances to include the term in the definition of health care services for the sole reason of avoiding any question about the intended scope of a specific statute. (Added 2025, No. 21, § 3, eff. July 1, 2025.)
