By: Moncrief S.B. No. 513
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
1-1 relating to the requirement that a facility accepting a prospective
1-2 voluntary inpatient mental health consumer for treatment have a
1-3 physician's signed order.
1-4 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-5 SECTION 1. Subsection (f), Section 572.0025, Health and
1-6 Safety Code, is amended to read as follows:
1-7 (f) A prospective voluntary patient may not be formally
1-8 accepted for treatment in a facility unless:
1-9 (1) the facility has a physician's <signed> order
1-10 admitting the prospective patient, which order may be issued
1-11 orally, electronically, or in writing, signed by the physician,
1-12 provided that, in the case of an oral order or an electronically
1-13 transmitted unsigned order, a signed original is presented to the
1-14 mental health facility within 24 hours of the initial order; the
1-15 order must be from:
1-16 (A) an admitting physician who has conducted an
1-17 in-person physical and psychiatric examination within 72 hours of
1-18 the admission; or
1-19 (B) an admitting physician who has consulted
1-20 with a physician who has conducted an in-person examination within
1-21 72 hours of the admission; and
1-22 (2) the facility administrator or a person designated
1-23 by the administrator has agreed to accept the prospective patient
2-1 and has signed a statement to that effect.
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,
2-7 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-8 passage, and it is so enacted.