SB 698

Under current law, the Medical Examining Board grants physician assistant

licenses to individuals who meet training and examination requirements and any

other requirements established in rules promulgated by the Medical Examining

Board.

The following provisions under current law authorize physicians or other

health care professionals to act under specified circumstances and to affect

individuals by these authorized actions:

1. Unless medically contraindicated as documented by a nursing home or

community-based residential facility resident's physician in the resident's medical

record, the resident has the right to private and unrestricted communications with

his or her family, physician, attorney, and others; to share a room with his or her

spouse or domestic partner if the spouse or domestic partner is also a resident; to

participate in activities of social, religious, and community groups; and to be free

from chemical and physical restraints.

2. Home health services that are provided to an individual by a home health

agency must be those specified under a plan for furnishing the services that is

established and periodically reviewed by a physician.

3. For hearings before the local board of review concerning assessments of

property taxes, an ill or disabled person who presents to the board a letter from a

physician or osteopath confirming the illness or disability may present testimony by

telephone.

4. Under laws relating to confidentiality of patient health care records, a

physician who treats a patient whose physical or mental condition, in the physician's

judgment, affects his or her ability to exercise reasonable and ordinary control over

a motor vehicle may, without the patient's informed consent, report the patient's

name and other information to the Department of Transportation. Physicians are

exempted from civil liability for reporting, or not reporting, this information in good

faith.

5. Under laws relating to communicable diseases:

a. The Department of Health Services (DHS) may order an individual who has

a confirmed diagnosis of infectious tuberculosis or symptoms indicative of

tuberculosis confined to a facility if several conditions are met, including notifying

a court of the confinement and providing to the court a physician's written statement

affirming the tuberculosis or symptoms.

b. If a court orders confinement of an individual with infectious tuberculosis

or symptoms indicative of tuberculosis, the individual must remain confined until

DHS or a local health officer, with the concurrence of a treating physician,

determines that treatment is complete or that the individual is no longer a public

health threat.

c. If, following a request by an officer of DHS or a local health officer, a person