Authorizing medically related actions by physician assistants

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 reasonably suspected of being infected with a sexually transmitted disease refuses or neglects examination by a physician or treatment, the DHS officer or local health officer may have the person committed to an institution for examination, treatment, or observation.

d. If a person with a sexually transmitted disease ceases or refuses treatment before reaching what is in a physician's opinion the noncommunicable stage, the physician must notify DHS and the person may be committed by a court for examination or treatment.

e. If a physician has reported to DHS a case of sexually transmitted disease, information regarding the disease and its treatment is not privileged before a court.

f. The State Laboratory of Hygiene must examine specimens for the diagnosis of sexually transmitted disease for any physician or local health officer and must report positive results to the local health officer and DHS.

g. If a local health officer or DHS officer requires it, a person who is employed in the handling of food products or is suspected of having a disease in a form that is communicable by food handling must submit to an examination by the officer or by a physician.

6. Under occupational regulation laws relating to physical therapists, a physical therapist may practice only on the written referral of a physician, chiropractor, dentist, or podiatrist, except under certain conditions, including providing services to an individual for a previously diagnosed medical condition after informing the individual's physician, chiropractor, dentist, or podiatrist.

7. Under occupational regulation laws relating to podiatrists, a podiatrist who renders chargeable services to, among others, a patient or physician, must render a statement of the charge directly to the person served.

8. Under laws relating to the practice of pharmacy, current law does the following:

a. Defines the term "practice of pharmacy" to include making therapeutic alternate drug selections in accordance with written guidelines or procedures approved by a hospital and by a physician for his or her patients for a hospital stay.

b. Provides that information communicated to a physician in an effort unlawfully to procure a prescription drug is not privileged communication.

c. Requires the enforcement of prescription drug laws that apply to physicians to be the responsibility of the Department of Regulation and Licensing and the Medical Examining Board.

d. Exempts pharmacists from requirements that they provide certain information when dispensing a drug product equivalent, if the patient is in a hospital and the drug product equivalent is dispensed in accordance with guidelines approved by, among others, the patient's physician.

Currently, an advanced practice nurse prescriber may act in the same manner physicians may act in the instances specified above.

This bill expands the current laws described above that authorize physicians to act under specified circumstances and to affect individuals by these authorized actions, by similarly authorizing individuals licensed as physician assistants.