S.B. No. 376
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to use of osteopathic hospitals by health maintenance and
    1-2  preferred provider organizations.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Subchapter E, Chapter 21, Insurance Code, is
    1-5  amended by adding Article 21.53B to read as follows:
    1-6        Art. 21.53B.  USE OF OSTEOPATHIC HOSPITAL BY HEALTH
    1-7  MAINTENANCE AND PREFERRED PROVIDER ORGANIZATIONS. (a)  A health
    1-8  maintenance or preferred provider organization that contracts with
    1-9  a hospital to provide services to covered individuals may not
   1-10  refuse to contract with a particular hospital solely because that
   1-11  hospital is an osteopathic hospital.
   1-12        (b)  A health maintenance or preferred provider organization
   1-13  that provides benefits for inpatient or outpatient services
   1-14  provided by allopathic hospitals shall seek to provide benefits for
   1-15  similar services provided by an osteopathic hospital if there is an
   1-16  osteopathic hospital within the service area of the health
   1-17  maintenance or preferred provider organization that will provide
   1-18  those services at substantially similar cost.
   1-19        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993, and
   1-20  applies only to a contract made or renewed on or after January 1,
   1-21  1994.  A contract made or renewed before January 1, 1994, is
   1-22  governed by the law in effect immediately before the effective date
   1-23  of this Act, and that law is continued in effect for that purpose.
   1-24        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-1  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-2  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-3  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-4  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.