By: Guillen, Escobar, Leibowitz, H.B. No. 1252
Gonzalez Toureilles
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to providing services for persons with chronic kidney
disease under the medical assistance program.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Section 533.009(a), Government Code, is amended
to read as follows:
(a) The commission shall ensure that managed care
organizations under contract with the commission to provide health
care services to recipients develop and implement special disease
management programs to manage a disease or other chronic health
conditions, such as heart disease, chronic kidney disease and its
medical complications, respiratory illness, including asthma,
diabetes, end-stage renal disease, HIV infection, or AIDS, and with
respect to which the commission identifies populations for which
disease management would be cost-effective.
SECTION 2. Section 32.059(a), Human Resources Code, as
added by Chapter 208, Acts of the 78th Legislature, Regular
Session, 2003, is amended to read as follows:
(a) The department shall request contract proposals from
providers of disease management programs to provide program
services to recipients of medical assistance who:
(1) have a disease or other chronic health condition,
such as heart disease, hemophilia, chronic kidney disease and its
medical complications, diabetes, respiratory illness, end-stage
renal disease, HIV infection, or AIDS, that the department
determines is a disease or condition that needs disease management;
and
(2) are not eligible to receive those services under a
Medicaid managed care plan.
SECTION 3. Subchapter B, Chapter 32, Human Resources Code,
is amended by adding Section 32.069 to read as follows:
Sec. 32.069. CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE MANAGEMENT INITIATIVE.
(a) A provider of disease management programs under Section
32.059, as added by Chapter 208, Acts of the 78th Legislature,
Regular Session, 2003, shall develop a program to provide screening
for and diagnosis and treatment of chronic kidney disease and its
medical complications under the medical assistance program. The
program must use generally recognized clinical practice guidelines
and laboratory assessments that identify chronic kidney disease on
the basis of impaired kidney function or the presence of kidney
damage.
(b) Consistent with a medical direction or authorization as
provided by Subsection (c), a licensed dietitian acting within the
scope of the person's license in a licensed facility that provides
screening, diagnosis, or treatment services to a patient as
described by Subsection (a), may:
(1) accept, transcribe into the patient's medical
record, or transmit verbal or electronically transmitted orders,
including medication orders, relating to the implementation or
provision of medical nutrition therapy and related medical
protocols for the patient or a group of patients from a physician to
another authorized health care professional; or
(2) order medical laboratory tests relating to the
implementation or provision of medical nutrition therapy and
related medical protocols for the patient or a group of patients.
(c) A medical direction or authorization required by
Subsection (b) must be provided through a physician's order,
standing medical order, standing delegation order, or medical
protocol issued in accordance with Subchapter A, Chapter 157,
Occupations Code, and rules adopted by the Texas State Board of
Medical Examiners under that subchapter.
SECTION 4. To provide program services to persons with
chronic kidney disease under the medical assistance program, the
Health and Human Services Commission may modify an existing
contract between the commission and a provider of a disease
management program under the medical assistance program.
SECTION 5. If before implementing any provision of this Act
a state agency determines that a waiver or authorization from a
federal agency is necessary for implementation of that provision,
the agency affected by the provision shall request the waiver or
authorization and may delay implementing that provision until the
waiver or authorization is granted.
SECTION 6. This Act takes effect September 1, 2005.