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Legislative Update #2

Posted over 12 years ago by Christen Standiford

From our colleagues at the UAPRN:

The Georgia General Assembly officially convened for the 2013 Session on Monday, January 11 and completed 4 of its 40 legislative days before it recessed for budget and appropriations committee work. Remember that there is no set end date to this year’s session as the legislature is convened and recessed at the discretion of the leadership. The first week saw committees being organized and committee Chairmen appointed. A new committee was formed by the House Leadership this year, the House Juvenile Justice Committee.

There were no changes in leadership in either the Senate or House Health Committees. Senator Renee Unterman (R- 45, Buford) will continue to chair the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, while Representative Sharon Cooper (R- 43, Cobb County) will continue to chair the House Health and Human Services Committee.

Notable events of the week included the Governor’s State of the State Address , a Senate vote to change its rules and limit lobbyist gifts to $100, and advancement in the Senate of the administration's fast-tracked hospital provider fee bill, SB 24 (Bethel-54th).

SB 24: would authorize the Department of Community Health to assess a provider fee on hospitals. The current provider fee will expire at the end of June, 2013. The monies are used to qualify the State for federal Medicaid funds. The state needs proceeds from the fee to secure about $700 million in Medicaid dollars from the federal government. If the fee is allowed to expire, the governor, hospitals and others say that reducing reimbursements to hospitals by 20% would be the only way to keep Medicaid solvent. This would seriously jeopardize many of Georgia’s Hospitals, especially rural and children’s hospitals. 

STATUS: On Thursday, January 17, after a number of hours of debate on the floor and the passage of one amendment, the bill PASSED THE SENATE with a 46-9 vote. It is expected to be taken up by the House soon.

POSITION: CAPRN SUPPORTS SB 24.

The General Assembly was in recess the week of January 21 and the House and Senate Appropriations committees met for joint sessions to hear state agencies present the Governor’s recommendations for their FY 13 supplemental and FY 14 budgets. While the economy is improving, State revenues are less than projected and all divisions of state government are expected to experience cuts (of about 3%) from last year’s budget. There are a few notable exceptions. Budget presentation highlights of interest include:

  • While Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids, found in the Department of Community Health budget (DCH Budget), were directed to absorb a 5 percent cut, the agency budget did not in fact reflect that full cut. The budget was calculated, however, assuming the hospital provider fee issue (SB 24) would be resolved favorably.  With this resolution, significant cuts to Medicaid would be avoided.
  • Lottery funds would be used to reinstate 10 days of GA Pre-Kto bring it to a full 180 days.
  • The K-12 funding formula (QBE) was exempted from the three percent cuts. The formula does, however, include a preexisting $1 billion cut in the base left from cuts in prior years.
  • Department of Human Services (DHS):  Total cuts of state dollars of about $4.7 million. "
  • Department of Public Health (DPH) is using federal dollars to replace nearly $275,000 of state dollars in the oral health preventionprogram.  The commissioner also commented on the achievable goal to cover the state with telemedicine capabilities to improve public health.  The department is applying for grants for this purpose.
  • $5 million in funds for Juvenile Incentive Funding Grants to be administered by the Governor’s Office of Children and Families as competitive grants to communities for the creation and use of community-based options for juvenile offenders.

Legislation that CAPRN is following includes:

HB 50: Mandatory reporting of violations of the Nurse Practice Act for nurses and its companion bill in the Senate SB 13 (here) & (here)

SB 10: Continued competency requirements for nursing licensure renewal (here)

CAPRN SUPPORTS these bills. These two pieces of legislation are the reintroduced versions of legislation supported by the Georgia Nurses Association last year that were not voted on before the end of the session.

Issues that CAPRN is monitoring:
  1. There is a possibility that a reworked version of the last year’s bill from the Secretary of State’s Office to re-organizing the function of the State’s Licensing Board’s will be introduced.
  2. Rep. Tom Weldon is expected to reintroduce a bill that did not pass last year regulating pain clinics.
  3. A new version of the Return to Play bill that mandates a child be removed from play and not returned until cleared by a qualified health care professional is expected to be introduced soon.

Ongoing efforts continue to secure sponsorship and reintroduce what was SB 386 last year. SB 386 removed the “only in life threating situations” restriction on APRN ordering of MRI and CT scans. Our sponsor from last year, Senator Johnny Grant, was defeated in his re-election bid and did not return to the Senate

Legislative Ask for the Week.

Please contact your members of the Georgia State Legislature to introduce yourself, and explain your scope of practice, education and certification and the health care services you provide in your community.

Send a note to Laura Searcy at lsearcy@caprn.org to let us know who was contacted and what the response was.

Please document any instances where patient care was hampered by existing restrictions and barriers to access and care by APRN’s. These concrete examples are powerful in illustrating to our legislators the negative effect on delivery of care of the current laws and regulations. It is important that we document and collect these examples. Send these to Laura Searcy at lsearcy@caprn.org .

Thanks again for all you do every day to improve the health of your patients and communities. Let's all take action to remove barriers to access and care for our patients in Georgia.

Laura Searcy MN, APRN, PNP-BC
Policy Director, Legislative Liaison
Coalition of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses
678-886-4503