BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 3622

By: Hefner

Business & Industry

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

The Texas Workers' Compensation Act establishes eligibility requirements for physicians to provide workers' compensation health care services and to receive remuneration for those services. It has been noted that there is no reinstatement process for physicians who, before September 1, 2007, were made ineligible to provide those services or receive remuneration. There have been calls to provide a mechanism through which these doctors may be reinstated under the act by the Texas Workers' Compensation Commission or the Texas Department of Insurance. C.S.H.B. 3622 seeks to remedy this situation by revising certain eligibility conditions for physicians to provide and receive remuneration for workers' compensation health care services.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 3622 amends the Labor Code to make a doctor who was previously made ineligible before September 1, 2007, to provide health care services and receive remuneration under the Texas Workers' Compensation Act eligible to provide those services and receive such remuneration if the doctor has been reinstated or restored by the Texas Workers' Compensation Commission or the division of workers' compensation of the Texas Department of Insurance to the list of approved doctors or to the workers' compensation system.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2021.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 3622 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following summarizes the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.

The original removed provisions under which a doctor was made ineligible to provide health care services and receive remuneration under the act, whereas the substitute retains those provisions but provides a mechanism through which such a doctor may be eligible under the act if reinstated or restored to the list of approved doctors or to the workers' compensation system.