By:  Van de Putte                                     H.B. No. 1462
       73R4963 JJT-F
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the disclosure of certain information about certain
    1-3  patients of a physician.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 576.005, Health and Safety Code, is
    1-6  amended to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 576.005.  CONFIDENTIALITY OF RECORDS.  (a)  Records of a
    1-8  mental health facility that directly or indirectly identify a
    1-9  present, former, or proposed patient are confidential unless
   1-10  disclosure is permitted by other state law.
   1-11        (b)  A treating physician exercising reasonable medical
   1-12  judgment may disclose orally the name or other information by which
   1-13  the identity of a patient under the physician's care may be
   1-14  determined, either directly or by reference to other
   1-15  nonconfidential information, to:
   1-16              (1)  a member of the patient's immediate family; or
   1-17              (2)  an individual who the physician knows has a close
   1-18  personal relationship with the patient.
   1-19        (c)  A disclosure under Subsection (b)  may not be made if
   1-20  the patient gives contrary written instructions to the treating
   1-21  physician.
   1-22        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-23  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-24  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-1  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-2  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-3  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-4  passage, and it is so enacted.