North Texas Nurse Practitioners

Follow up on SB7 Amendment

Posted almost 13 years ago by Lesa Walker

The following is the most recent CNAP alert...hopefully you are ALL supporters of CNAP, making these alerts redundant for you!!!!

Unfortunately, our advocates did not prevail on SB 7 and our APRN study language is not in the SB 7 Conference Committee Report (final version of SB 7).  While this is disappointing, it is a minor bump in the road, and given the latest breaking news, perhaps a smaller bump than we ever imagined.

This afternoon, Rep. Wayne Christian (R-Center, HD 9) offered a revised APRN study amendment that was adopted as part of HB 26 authored by Rep. Jerry Madden (R-Plano, HD 67). In order to make the amendment germane to the subject matter of this bill on cost savings in the corrections system, the scope of the Interim legislative study was narrowed. There is still broad language to examine APRNs'  independent authority to diagnose and prescribe, but with a focus on studying the cost and quality impact of allowing APRNs to have independent prescriptive authority in Texas Department of Criminal Justice facilities.

What was lost is the language directing the study to assess the impact on: 1) health care in underserved areas, 2) patient safety and quality, and 3) the state's overall health care system. However, everything else about the amendment remains the same. To read the amendment, Click Here.

HB 26 passed the House with Rep. Christian's amendment. Next, the bill will go through the Senate Committee, where we hope the APRN language will continue to survive. Therefore, please stay tuned for more action alerts as we work to keep this language in the Senate version of the bill.

Once again, we thank Rep. Christian for his dedication to APRNs. We also owe a big debt of gratitude to Rep. Jerry Madden (R-Plano, HD 67) for accepting the amendment and to Rep. Donna Howard (D-Austin, HD 48) and Chair Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham, HD 13) for speaking in favor of the amendment.

I also thank all of you who responded to CNAP action alerts throughout the Regular and Special Session. Calling and emailing your legislators to register a position is a great way for your legislators and their staff to get to know you, so your efforts to respond to action alerts are always worthwhile, whether or not the end result is what we would hope. Please keep up the good work.

I will continue to keep you updated on any pertinent issues. The 1st Called Session ends on June 29th, or sooner if the Legislature completes all the issues on the Call. In the meantime, all the bills that passed during the Regular Session, unless vetoed, will become law by next Monday, June 20th. Then within a month, you can expect to see a summary of bills passed during the 82nd Texas Legislature that directly affect you and your patients.

 


Comments

Mona Cheung over 12 years ago

FYI-
This amendment is solely confined to services rendered at criminal justice facilities.
Any chance we can reverse that???


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