1-1     By:  Janek (Senate Sponsor - Nelson)                   H.B. No. 677
 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House March 25, 1999;
 1-3     March 29, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on Health
 1-4     Services; April 21, 1999, reported favorably by the following vote:
 1-5     Yeas 5, Nays 0; April 21, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to physicians who may provide certain mental health
 1-9     services.
1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11           SECTION 1.  Section 571.003(18), Health and Safety Code, is
1-12     amended to read as follows:
1-13                 (18)  "Physician" means:
1-14                       (A)  a person licensed to practice medicine in
1-15     this state;
1-16                       (B)  [or]  a person employed by a federal agency
1-17     who has a license to practice medicine in any state; or
1-18                       (C)  a person authorized to perform medical acts
1-19     under an institutional permit at a Texas postgraduate training
1-20     program approved by the  Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical
1-21     Education, the American Osteopathic Association, or the Texas State
1-22     Board of Medical Examiners.
1-23           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-24     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-25     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-26     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-27     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-28     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-29     passage, and it is so enacted.
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