By:  Madla, et al.                                     S.B. No. 603
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to certain health care providers under a managed care
    1-2  Medicaid program.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Section 16, Article 4413(502), Revised Statutes,
    1-5  is amended to read as follows:
    1-6        Sec. 16.  ADMINISTRATION OF MEDICAID PROGRAM.  (a)  On
    1-7  approval by the federal government, the commission is the state
    1-8  agency designated to administer federal medical assistance funds.
    1-9        (b)  In adopting rules implementing a managed care Medicaid
   1-10  program, the commission shall:
   1-11              (1)  to the extent possible, design a system which will
   1-12  ensure that each Medicaid client has access to quality health
   1-13  services in that individual's local community;
   1-14              (2)  ensure that in developing the provider network
   1-15  extra consideration is given to a health care provider who has
   1-16  traditionally provided care to Medicaid and charity care patients;
   1-17  and
   1-18              (3)  require that a managed care organization include
   1-19  in its provider network, for not less than three years, each
   1-20  primary care physician and each hospital that:
   1-21                    (A)  previously provided care to Medicaid and
   1-22  charity care patients at a significant level prescribed by the
   1-23  commission;
   1-24                    (B)  agrees to accept the organization's standard
    2-1  provider reimbursement rate;
    2-2                    (C)  meets the credentialing requirements of the
    2-3  organization, provided that lack of board certification or
    2-4  accreditation by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of
    2-5  Healthcare Organizations shall not be the sole grounds for
    2-6  exclusion; and
    2-7                    (D)  agrees to meet and comply with all of the
    2-8  terms and conditions of the organization's standard provider
    2-9  agreement.
   2-10        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-11  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-12  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-13  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-14  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-15  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-16  passage, and it is so enacted.