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An Act Relative to Potential Anti-Competitive Behavior by Hospitals and Payers
- SB 578
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This bill instructs the Office of the Attorney General to conduct a study of potentially anti-competitive behavior by hospitals and payers.
An Act To Create a Community Hospital Reserve Fund
- SB 579
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The proposed legislation creates an additional vehicle that community hospitals may access that could allow access to the capital market that some hospitals may not currently be able to enter, reduce the overall cost of the issuance of bonds, reduce the overall cost of other credit enhancement vehicles, and minimize the overall financial risk to the Commonwealth.
An Act Relative to the Determination of Need for Independently Licensed/Commercial Laboratories
- SB 576
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This bill will subject ambulatory surgery centers and clinical labs to the same Determination of Need and Attorney General community benefit obligations that are applicable to hospitals.
An Act Relative to Encouraging HIV Testing -
SB 883
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An estimated 8,000-10,000 people in Massachusetts are unknowingly living with HIV/AIDS in Commonwealth. Massachusetts is one of the only states that require written informed consent to an HIV test, as opposed to verbal consent – which is the standard for virtually all other diagnostic blood tests. This bill allows for verbal consent and instructs the commissioner of DPH to study the current best practices in reaching untested
populations.
An Act Relative to Expert Witnesses in Actions for Medical Malpractice -
SB 1780
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This bill requires that an expert witness involved in a medical malpractice case practice in the same specialty as the defendant physician.
An Act Providing for a Fair Judgment Rate in Medical Malpractice Actions
- SB 573
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This bill ties the rate of judgment interest to U.S. Treasury Bonds. Having a high rate of judgment interest, the current rate in Massachusetts is tied to the U.S. Treasury Bonds plus an additional four percent, incentivizes trial lawyers to have a lengthy trial and encourages doctors to settle out of court even when they might be innocent. A high rate of judgment interest not only contributes to the litigious nature of the Commonwealth, but it aids in the escalation of malpractice insurance costs.
An Act Relative to Health Care Providers and First Responders Education
- SB 886
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This bill is endorsed by AIDS Action Committee and establishes the requirement that health care providers and first responders who may be exposed to bodily fluids in the course of their work take a course on the appropriate counseling, treatment, and management of exposure to HIV as a condition of licensure.
An Act Instructing DPH to Conduct a Study of Community Health Trends
- SB 885
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This bill instructs the Department of Public Health to conduct a study of attrition and related trends concerning community hospitals.
An Act Relative to Malpractice Reform - SB
574
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The escalating cost of malpractice insurance is driving up the cost of healthcare. This bill takes two steps to help bring down the cost of malpractice insurance; it establishes a six month “cool down” period between an adverse medical event and the filing of a suit, this six months can be used for sharing of information between parties in hopes of reaching a settlement before the need for costly litigation. Secondly, the bill encourages medical professionals to apologize to patients who receive negative outcomes from treatment or are the victims of a physician’s mistake without that apology being used against them in court. Patients often report that they decided to sue the doctor simply because they felt the physician was unapologetic.
An Act Increasing Access to Primary Care Physicians in the Commonwealth
- SB 575
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Massachusetts is suffering from an acute shortage of primary care physicians. Primary care docs report that the high cost of living in the Commonwealth is often what drives them to set up their practice in a neighboring state. This bill establishes a primary care income tax credit equal to the percentage of office visits filled by patients on Medicaid, with a ceiling on the credit of 15%.
An Act Relative to Increasing Access to Primary Care Physicians for MassHealth Patients
- SB 1779
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Due to the low rate of payment offered through MassHealth many primary care physicians choose not to accept MassHealth patients; the fact that a doctor cannot turn away any MassHealth patients once they have agreed to accept them further complicates the issue. This bill would allow doctors to put a cap on the number of MassHealth patients they will see as a part of their practice, as dentists are already allowed to do. This helps physicians to cover their own costs and helps MassHealth patients find a doctor within a reasonable period of time.
An Act Relative to Medical Liability - SB 577
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The current adversarial malpractice system stands in the way of necessary efforts to improve patient safety. This bill would provide a model for a different approach to malpractice reform that attempts to make health care safer by encouraging transparency with regards to medical errors while at the same time allowing patients to be fairly compensated for their avoidable injuries. The bill would create a pilot “health court” to handle medical liability claims. The pilot project could be structured to encompass a city, a county or a specific high risk specialty, such as emergency medicine or obstetrics.
An Act Relative to Rendering Emergency Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation
- SB 884
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This bill is endorsed by the American Heart Association and it expands the Good Samaritan law to cover those that administer CPR in good faith.
An Act Requiring Ambulatory Surgicenters and Clinical Laboratories to Serve MassHealth
Enrollees - SB 882
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This bill would require all ASC’s and clinical labs to be enrolled as MassHealth
providers.
An Act Relative to Specialty Licensure
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This bill further refines the definition of ambulatory surgicenters to include facilities that provide anesthesia conscious sedation and diagnostic injections, with the exclusion of dental facilities. This will close loopholes that currently exist for facilities and practices providing hospital-type services that are not Medicare-certified, requiring them to be clinic licensed and subject to DoN and
ASCs.
An Act Studying the Health Effects of Toxic Mold
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This bill would require a study to examine the impacts that toxic mold has on public health.
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