H.B. No. 1972
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to permissible activities of certain nonprofit medical
    1-3  clinics operated by a nonprofit hospital or organization.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 3.06, Medical Practice Act (Article
    1-6  4495b, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended by adding
    1-7  Subsections (g) and (h) to read as follows:
    1-8        (g)  This Act does not prohibit a nonprofit clinic that is
    1-9  operated by a nonprofit hospital or organization and that primarily
   1-10  serves a financially indigent population from:
   1-11              (1)  contracting with a physician to provide services
   1-12  at the clinic;
   1-13              (2)  paying a physician a minimum guarantee to assure
   1-14  the physician's availability;
   1-15              (3)  billing to and collecting from patients as the
   1-16  physician's agent the physician's professional fees; or
   1-17              (4)  retaining any professional fees collected under
   1-18  Subdivision (3) of this subsection up to the amount of the minimum
   1-19  guaranteed fee and a reasonable collection fee.
   1-20        (h)  In Subsection (g), "financially indigent population"
   1-21  means persons meeting Medicaid eligibility requirements or
   1-22  uninsured persons who are accepted for care with no obligation to
   1-23  pay or with a discounted obligation to pay for services rendered
    2-1  based on the clinic's eligibility system.
    2-2        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-3  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-4  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-5  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-6  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.