1-1  By:  Moncrief                                          S.B. No. 513
    1-2        (In the Senate - Filed February 9, 1995; February 13, 1995,
    1-3  read first time and referred to Committee on Health and Human
    1-4  Services; April 5, 1995, reported adversely, with favorable
    1-5  Committee Substitute by the following vote:  Yeas 8, Nays 0;
    1-6  April 5, 1995, sent to printer.)
    1-7  COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE FOR S.B. No. 513                 By:  Moncrief
    1-8                         A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-9                                AN ACT
   1-10  relating to the requirement that a facility accepting a prospective
   1-11  voluntary inpatient mental health consumer for treatment have a
   1-12  physician's signed order.
   1-13        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
   1-14        SECTION 1.  Subsection (f), Section 572.0025, Health and
   1-15  Safety Code, is amended to read as follows:
   1-16        (f)  A prospective voluntary patient may not be formally
   1-17  accepted for treatment in a facility unless:
   1-18              (1)  the facility has a physician's <signed> order
   1-19  admitting the prospective patient, which order may be issued
   1-20  orally, electronically, or in writing, signed by the physician,
   1-21  provided that, in the case of an oral order or an electronically
   1-22  transmitted unsigned order, a signed original is presented to the
   1-23  mental health facility within 24 hours of the initial order; the
   1-24  order must be from:
   1-25                    (A)  an admitting physician who has conducted an
   1-26  in-person physical and psychiatric examination within 72 hours of
   1-27  the admission; or
   1-28                    (B)  an admitting physician who has consulted
   1-29  with a physician who has conducted an in-person examination within
   1-30  72 hours of the admission; and
   1-31              (2)  the facility administrator or a person designated
   1-32  by the administrator has agreed to accept the prospective patient
   1-33  and has signed a statement to that effect.
   1-34        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-35  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-36  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-37  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-38  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-39  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-40  passage, and it is so enacted.
   1-41                               * * * * *