By:  Moncrief                                          S.B. No. 513
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the requirement that a prospective voluntary inpatient
    1-2  mental health consumer be accompanied by a physician's signed
    1-3  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 an <a physician's signed> order
   1-10  admitting the prospective patient from a physician who has
   1-11  conducted an in-person medical examination within 72 hours of the
   1-12  admission; the order may be issued orally, electronically, or in
   1-13  writing signed by the physician, provided that, in the case of an
   1-14  oral order or an electronically transmitted order, a signed
   1-15  original is presented to the mental health facility within 24 hours
   1-16  of the initial order; and
   1-17              (2)  the facility administrator or a person designated
   1-18  by the administrator has agreed to accept the prospective patient
   1-19  and has signed a statement to that effect.
   1-20        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-21  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-22  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-23  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-1  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-2  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-3  passage, and it is so enacted.