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12/20/2024

OSMA Legislative “Lame Duck” Summary

 

The Ohio Legislature has closed out the 2023-2024 two-year legislative cycle with a hectic lame duck legislative session. With the clock ticking, it has been a hectic time for OSMA’s Advocacy team, as it was all hands on deck at the Statehouse for the end of the 135th General Assembly. Many bills moved through hearings in committees and passed on the House and Senate floors in the past several weeks. Read on for a summary of what happened with the major items impacting the practice of medicine.

Passed Legislation

Among the dozens of bills sent to Governor DeWine for his signature at the end of the general assembly this week:

Hospital Violence Prevention
OSMA is pleased to report that HB 452, legislation we supported as part of a coalition of health care groups which will require hospitals to craft workplace violence prevention plans, passed out of the Senate and was concurred upon by the House on Wednesday. This bill, sponsored by Rep. Andrea White, contains several provisions that address training, security, and incident reporting.  HB 452 was one of our priority pieces of legislation to watch during this lame duck session, and we are thrilled that we were able to help push it past the finish line!


Maternal and Infant Health
Sponsored by Rep. Andrea White (R-Kettering), HB 7 was voted out of the Senate on Wednesday, after which the House promptly voted to concur in the Senate’s amendments. This bill contains numerous provisions aimed at decreasing Ohio’s infant mortality rate. OSMA looks forward to continuing to advocate for efforts to support maternal and infant health in the 136th General Assembly.


Lupus Awareness Month, 988 and Suicide/Crisis Prevention
Language from several other bills initiated by or supported by OSMA was amended into the final version of SB 234 before it passed in both chambers, including provisions from HB 538 (designating May as Lupus Awareness Month), HB 571 (requiring schools and higher education institutions to include the national suicide and crisis lifeline telephone number on student ID cards, planners, and electronic portals), and language supporting Ohio’s 988 suicide hotline program.

OSMA, in cooperation with the Ohio Association of Rheumatology, spearheaded the effort for legislation to create Lupus Awareness Month. Additionally, OSMA was supportive of HB 571 and is a strong advocate for continuing to fund and raise awareness about the 988 suicide hotline program in Ohio. Our advocacy team welcomed these amendments to SB 234 and hopes they will represent small steps in our state’s continued broader effort to appropriately address increased need for mental health care.  

Certified Mental Health Assistants
Language from several other pieces of legislation was added to SB 95 before it passed. Among those amendments was language from SB 60. As you may recall, SB 60 creates a new mid-level mental health profession in Ohio – the Certified Mental Health Assistant, and OSMA (alongside the Ohio Psychiatric Physicians Association) spent many months advocating against the original version of the legislation due to serious concerns about lack of training and education. Thankfully, all of our suggested changes – which mostly addressed oversight, training, and education requirements for CMHAs – were accepted into an amended version of the bill, which is what was folded into SB 95. For a refresher on the provisions of the CMHA legislation, please check out our update from this summer.


APRNs – Scope of Practice
SB 196 also fully passed out of both chambers of the legislature. As a reminder, SB 196 is an APRN scope of practice bill which OSMA was able to take a Neutral position on after the sponsor approached us with a draft before it was even introduced and sought our feedback. The sponsor, Sen. Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson), was very open to our recommendations and accepted all our suggested changes, including attaching to all provisions of the bill ““under the supervision of a physician.” This ensured all “new” authority would have to be granted by the APRN’s supervising physician. We are extremely thankful for the cooperation and willingness of the sponsor to consider our input on this legislation.


Medical Board
Senate Bill 109, which arose in response to the high-profile investigation of the sexual abuse of patients by Dr. Richard Strauss, completed its journey through both chambers. OSMA conducted significant advocacy work on SB 109 over the last several years. Generally, SB 109 aims to protect patients by increasing reporting requirements for sexual misconduct to the medical board. An amendment added to the bill before its final passage included language from HB 89, which outlaws performing an intimate examination on an anesthetized or unconscious patient except under limited circumstances.


Tobacco Products
Another OSMA-supported bill, HB 258, was amended into SB 100, which passed out the legislature this month. As you may recall, HB 258 increases penalties against businesses for sale of tobacco products to minors. While the problem of Ohio children using tobacco and vape products is multifaceted and complex, OSMA believes the language from HB 258 is a reasonable step to enact in order to better address one major aspect of the issue—poor regulation of tobacco sales to minors.


Hearing Aids Coverage, Off-Label Prescribing
Legislators incorporated a slew of legislative items into HB 315 in the final hours of the 135th General Assembly, including language from an OSMA-supported bill, HB 152, which requires insurers to provide coverage for hearing aids and related services for individuals 21 years-old and younger.

Additionally, the conference committee report accepted by both legislative chambers included compromise language on HB 73, a bill regarding off-label prescribing which OSMA (among other healthcare and hospital groups, including the Medical Board) had previously expressed concerns about. The 3 main aspects of the adopted compromise language include provisions which deal with the World Health Organization, prohibit infringement on medical free speech, ensure patients in hospitals or inpatient facilities receive sufficient fluids and nutrition.

Defeated Legislation - Opposed by OSMA

HB 319 – Vaccines
During lame duck, OSMA and a large coalition of organizations in the business and health care communities provided opponent testimony against House Bill 319, a concerning anti-vaccine proposal. We are thankful to report that we successfully prevented this bill from advancing further, and it did not meet the deadline to pass. As a reminder, this legislation would have prohibited discrimination against an individual for the refusal of certain medical interventions for reasons of conscience, including religious convictions. This bill mainly targeted vaccinations, and specifically included vaccine requirements for college admission and employment. It would also, for example, have prevented health facilities from implementing policies such as those that require readily-accepted vaccines in the clinical environment (like tuberculosis) or require unvaccinated employees to wear a mask during flu season in certain areas of a hospital. We will be watching closely for possible reintroduction of this legislation next year and we will be prepared to continue to advocate against it and its dangerous provisions.

OSMA is also pleased to report that numerous scope of practice bills we opposed this general assembly are defeated, for now:

OSMA-Supported Legislation that
Did Not Meet the Deadline

While we wish it was possible for OSMA to get every legislative priority passed during the two-year legislative cycle, there are always some advocacy items from our agenda which are unable to fully complete their journey in time.

For the following items, OSMA will push for reintroduction in the 136th General Assembly and the OSMA advocacy team will work to build on the progress we made during this general assembly:

Stay tuned for the following:

 

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