By:  Maxey                                             H.B. No. 683
       73R3758 KLL-F
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to restrictions on activities performed by persons in
    1-3  certain licensed professions.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Subchapter B, Chapter 81, Health and Safety Code,
    1-6  is amended by adding Section 81.025 to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 81.025.  RULES CONCERNING LICENSED PROFESSIONAL WITH
    1-8  COMMUNICABLE DISEASE.  (a)  A state agency that prohibits a holder
    1-9  of a license issued by that agency from practicing a profession
   1-10  subject to the license while the license holder is knowingly
   1-11  suffering from a communicable disease shall adopt rules that
   1-12  define, according to guidelines issued by the board, each disease
   1-13  or type of disease that could reasonably be transmitted in the
   1-14  normal performance of that profession.
   1-15        (b)  The board by rule shall provide guidelines for a
   1-16  profession for which a statute prohibits a license holder from
   1-17  practicing the person's profession while knowingly suffering from a
   1-18  communicable disease.  The guidelines may not apply to any other
   1-19  profession and must define the diseases or types of diseases that
   1-20  may be transmitted in the normal performance of that profession and
   1-21  the circumstances under which the transmission may occur.
   1-22        (c)  In this section, "license" includes all or part of an
   1-23  agency permit, certificate, approval, registration, or similar form
   1-24  of permission required by law.
    2-1        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-2  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-3  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-4  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-5  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-6  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-7  passage, and it is so enacted.