By:  Madla                                             S.B. No. 983
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                       AN ACT
 1-1     relating to a branch office of a home health or personal assistance
 1-2     services agency.
 1-3           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-4           SECTION 1.  After consulting with the Texas Department of
 1-5     Health, the Texas Department of Human Services, and providers and
 1-6     consumers of home health and personal assistance services, the
 1-7     commissioner of health and human services shall contact the federal
 1-8     Health Care Financing Administration to request that the Health
 1-9     Care Financing Administration adopt rules that:
1-10                 (1)  allow a home and community support services agency
1-11     to use modern methods of communication in the supervision of the
1-12     agency's branch offices, including the telephone, fax machines,
1-13     pagers, and electronic mail; and
1-14                 (2)  eliminate the driving distance requirements for a
1-15     branch office of a home and community support services agency or
1-16     allow the state to set its own driving distance requirements.
1-17           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
1-18           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-19     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-20     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-21     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-22     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
1-23                          COMMITTEE AMENDMENT NO. 1
1-24           Amend SB. No. 983, lines 15 and 16 on page 1, by deleting the
 2-1     words "or allow the state to set its own driving distance
 2-2     requirements" after the word "agency"
 2-3                                                                  Capelo