GLMS POLICY AND
ADVOCACY IN 2014
Tracy L. Ragland, MD
T
he GLMS Policy and Advocacy Team
was very active during the 2014 session of the Kentucky General Assembly.
We personally interacted with nearly every
member of the Jefferson County Delegation,
the majority of leadership in both the House
and Senate, and several legislators representing other areas of the Commonwealth. After
hosting a reception for the Delegation in early
January, GLMS had a presence weekly in Frankfort until the end of
the session in April. Team members attended committee meetings,
offered formal testimony in hearings, met individually with legislators, and took part in rallies and press conferences in support of
efforts to improve Kentucky’s healthcare environment.
At the start of the session, the team focused on four pieces of
legislation: SmokeFree Kentucky (SB 117 and HB 173), a proposal to
ban smoking in public spaces throughout our state; Expert Witness
Requirement (SB 134), a long-supported idea to require board certification and significant local experience in a physician-defendant’s
specialty as a prerequisite for physicians who wish to work as paid
experts in medical malpractice suits in Kentucky; MOST (HB 145),
a proposal to establish a Medical Order for Scope of Treatment, a
standardized, portable, and physician-signed form that documents
a patient’s health care decisions; and Good Samaritan/911 -- SB 62,
a straightforward bill that proposed allowing limited immunity
from prosecution for people who call 911 or another authority upon
witnessing a potential overdose taking place, and SB 5, an omnibus
bill that included SB 62’s language in addition to a very controversial
measure that would have required homicide convictions for people,
including addicts, found guilty of indirectly causing on overdose
death by selling drugs to an individual who then dies or miscarries
as a result of taking them.
As the weeks went on, the Team ended up actively supporting 5
other bills as well: Prescription Eye Drops (SB 118), which allows
for health plan coverage of more frequent refills of prescription eye
drops; Medical Review Panels (SB 119); Tanning Bed Restrictions
(HB 310), a proposal to prohibit children under the age of 18 from
using a tanning bed without a prescription from a physician; Pediatric Abusive Head Trauma (HB 157), which established both a
requirement for a one time CME on recognizing head trauma in
children for Pediatricians, Family Physicians, Emergency Physicians,
Urgent Care Physicians, and Radiologists, as well as a sunsetting
of the current HIV CME requirement for all Kentucky physicians;
and Insurance Opt Out legislation (SB 185), a bill that would make
it illegal for an insurance company to create a situation where a
provider is automatically in agreement to a contract change or new
product offering (with no requirement for meaningful communication on the change) unless he or she “opts out” of the agreement.
For a variety of reasons, only Prescription Eye Drops and Pediatric Abusive HeadTrauma successfully passed both chambers and
were signed into law. Strong opinions of several legislators and their
constituents on politically divisive issues such as property rights and
individual liberty, an individual’s right to life versus right to choose
across the entire life spectrum, and the ongoing so-called war on
drugs negatively affected the outcome of SmokeFree Kentucky,
Tanning Bed Restrictions, MOST, and Good Samaritan-911. Likewise, the ongoing opposition to anything resembling tort reform
by most leaders in the House harmed H