Legislative Alert: April, 2000
by Louise Browning, CAE
Executive Director and Lobbyist
SB 1690 on Nondiscrimination
Passing SB 1690 this session does not look at all promising. It is still stuck in the General Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee along with many other bills relative to managed care. The moratorium on new managed care legislation will end this year, and there will be nothing standing in our way in January, 2001 to prevent us from passing this bill.
There is a patients’ rights bill in Congress currently that has a nondiscrimination clause in it and it has passed both the House and Senate. Unfortunately, it has passed in two different versions, as often happens in Congress, and it is now in a Conference Committee. The nondiscrimination clause, however, is not one of the sticking points. So, no matter what version passes, that clause should remain intact. There is a possibility the conferees will work out their differences and this bill will pass in the near future. In that case, we may not need to pass ours next year. Read more about this bill on ANA’s website at www.nursingworld.org.
Coordinated School Health Improvement Act
The coordinated school health bill passed early in the session, and Public Chapter No. 554 is now available on the legislative website at www.legislature.state.tn.us. The state redesigned their website shortly after the February issue of the Tennessee Nurse was published where I had gone into detail about how to find bills and the Tennessee Code. Information is still easy to locate and the address remains the same.
Tobacco Settlement
A bill (SB 3173/HB 3177) to enact the Tennessee Tobacco Settlement Trust Fund Act is one of many relative to the tobacco settlement funds.
The Senate bill is currently in a special subcommittee to consider all of the tobacco bills. Senators Crutchfield, Clabough and Ford serve on this subcommittee. It is expected that the House will also appoint a special subcommittee. The House bill is currently assigned to the Budget Subcommittee of the House Finance Committee.
This bill would create a special trust fund within the state treasury. All funds received by the state under the Attorneys General Master Tobacco Settlement Agreement would be deposited in the trust. Funds would be invested by the state treasurer.
Seventy five percent of the interest or income from the investment would be used for public education and information programs designed to discourage the use of tobacco products, enforcement programs to prevent the purchase of tobacco products by minors, voluntary smoking cessation programs, and medical and scientific research related to tobacco use and school health programs.
Twenty five percent would be used to promote economic growth and development in tobacco communities to assist such communities in reducing their dependency on tobacco and tobacco-related businesses and any other matters that affect tobacco growers.
The bill would create two boards. The Tobacco Use Reduction and Health Care Board, includes three physicians and one school nurse among others. This board would determine annually the appropriate uses of the 75 percent of the fund’s interest. The Tobacco Community Revitalization Board would determine the appropriate uses of the 25 percent of the fund’s interest.
The bill I reported on in the February issue that would require nursing homes to employ full-time registered nurses as the director of nursing has not been considered in the House or Senate committees. Call your senators and representatives now, who serve on the health committees, and ask them to support HB 2512/SB 2721 when it comes to their committee or the floor. This bill was summarized in the February issue of the Tennessee Nurse and the February issue of the Legislative Alert.
BHO/HMO Liability for Damages
This bill (SB 2283/HB 2002) requires a BHO or HMO to designate a licensed MD to serve as medical director, who shall be subject to all forms of disciplinary action and penalties specified in the Medical Practice Act.
The BHO/HMO shall be liable for damages for harm to an enrollee if the damage is proximately caused by its failure to exercise ordinary and reasonable care. They would be liable for damages caused by a treatment decision made by their employees, agents, contractors or representatives who are acting on behalf of the organization.
This bill does not apply to TennCare or to enrollees in the state sponsored health insurance plan for state employees. It has passed the House, but is keeping our bill company in the General Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee. I suspect it may die a natural death along with numerous other managed care bills in that subcommittee.
Orthopedic Physician Assistants
The orthopedic PAs have a bill (SB 3243/HB3272), which TMA, TNA and the Academy of Physician Assistants are opposing, to authorize them to write prescriptions for noncontrolled legend drugs. These are mostly physician trained OPAs and the bill seems to have come from a particular orthopedic group in the state, not from any professional association. The first amendment changed the wording to controlled drugs Schedules II through V.
The second amendment reverses the intent to prescribe controlled drugs and limits their prescribing to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics, upon completion of an advanced pharmacological course with a score of at least 85% on the examination. The amendment also deletes the grandfathering provision of physician trained orthopedic PAs into the licensure status as OPAs, and requires future OPAs to complete an approved OPA formal education program. Â
This bill was rolled in both the Senate General Welfare Committee and the House Health and Human Resources Committee until after the recess, which will be the week of May 1. Talk to the members of theses committees now to oppose this bill.
Senate General Welfare Committee: Senators John Ford (chair), Tom Leatherwood, Roy Herron, Marsha Blackburn, David Fowler, Thelma Harper, Doug Henry, Rosalind Kurita, and Curtis Person.
House Health and Human Resources Committee: Representative Joe Armstrong (chair), Mary Pruitt, Mary Ann Eckles, John Arriola, Diane Black, Gene Caldwell, David Davis, John Deberry, Lois DeBerry, Dennis Ferguson, Tre Hargett, Sherry Jones, Steve McDaniel, Jason Mumpower, Gary Odom, Bob Patton, Brenda Turner, and Page Walley.
Board of Medical Examiners
TMA has introduced a bill to privatize the Board of Medical Examiners (SB 3128/HB 3123). This will be a bill to watch as the concept is a totally new one to Tennessee. Originally written to apply to all health regulatory boards, it has been amended to apply only to the Medical Board. This bill would allow the Medical Board to keep all of their licensure fees collected rather than being administered from the general funds, increase the salary of the executive director in order to employ a physician to serve in that capacity, and employ their own investigators. The Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners is 51st in the nation in taking action on disciplinary cases. This is a 14-page bill and one you may be interested in reading on the legislative information website.
