Topeka ? Kansas Medicaid officials would have more ability to control the prescription of costly mental health drugs under a bill scheduled for final action in the Senate on Wednesday.

Supporters of the bill say it will give patients more protection from over-prescription of powerful antipsychotic drugs, many of which have serious side effects. But advocates for mentally ill patients say it could deprive them of needed medication and could result in more of those patients being hospitalized or ending up in jail.

Senate Bill 123 would repeal a law that has been in place since 2002 that specifically prohibits the Kansas Medicaid system from controlling the prescription of those drugs through the use of preferred drug lists, prior authorization requirements or other methods.

According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, in the first 11 months of 2014, the Medicaid program spent $24.6 million buying just one drug, Abilify, which is used to treat symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In certain doses, it is also used in combination with other drugs to treat clinical depression.

Sen. Jim Denning, R-Overland Park, a health care administrator who serves on the Public Health and Welfare Committee, said the state’s failure to control those pharmaceuticals has endangered patients. He cited a recent “drug utilization review” that identified more than 4,000 children in the Medicaid program who have been prescribed two or more anti-psychotic drugs within a 60-day period, despite the fact that most of the drugs are not recommended for children.

He also said about 45 percent of all nursing home patients in Kansas are receiving anti-psychotic medications, one of the highest rates in the nation.

But Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, said the bill wasn’t being promoted for patient safety.

“This bill is all about the money,” Kelly said.

She pointed to a fiscal note on the bill that projected it would save the state $16 million a year, including $6.7 million from the general fund, money the administration has already included in its budget projections for next year.

“That’s not going to happen,” Kelly said. She noted that when similar bills were offered during the Sebelius administration, the former agency known as the Kansas Health Policy Authority projected it would save only $800,000 a year.

Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, who chairs the Public Health and Welfare Committee, denied that the bill was only about saving money.

“This is about protecting our children and our senior citizens, making sure they get the quality health care in the Medicaid system that they would in a private health insurance system,” she said.