1-1  By:  Moncrief                                          S.B. No. 570
    1-2        (In the Senate - Filed February 15, 1995; February 16, 1995,
    1-3  read first time and referred to Committee on Health and Human
    1-4  Services; April 5, 1995, reported favorably by the following vote:
    1-5  Yeas 6, Nays 0; April 5, 1995, sent to printer.)
    1-6                         A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-7                                AN ACT
    1-8  relating to the confidentiality of complaint information in the
    1-9  possession of the Health Professions Council.
   1-10        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
   1-11        SECTION 1.  Section 2, Article 4512p, Revised Statutes, is
   1-12  amended by adding Subsection (c) to read as follows:
   1-13        (c)  All complaints, adverse reports, and other complaint
   1-14  information regarding the content of a complaint in the possession
   1-15  of or received or gathered by the council or its employees or
   1-16  agents relating to a person, including a partnership, association,
   1-17  corporation, or other entity, initiating a complaint or the
   1-18  licensed professional, including a partnership, association,
   1-19  corporation, or other entity, being complained against are
   1-20  privileged and confidential and are not subject to discovery,
   1-21  subpoena, or other means of legal compulsion for their release to
   1-22  anyone other than council employees or agents involved in
   1-23  collecting complaint information or the specific council member
   1-24  agency or board responsible for the regulation of the health
   1-25  profession under which the individual or institution being
   1-26  complained against is licensed or its employees or agents involved
   1-27  in licensee discipline.
   1-28        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
   1-29        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-30  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-31  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-32  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-33  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
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