BILL ANALYSIS

S.B. 1058

By: Uresti

Public Health

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Currently, no uniform reporting requirements exist for the various state boards that oversee health care professionals.  The state legislature is unable to assess the efficacy of board actions, such as licensing, license revocation, license suspension, complaints, reprimands, or investigations due to this lack of uniform reporting requirements. 

S.B. 1058 requires a health occupation regulatory agency to file an annual report that contains certain information with each legislative committee with oversight responsibility over the reporting agency.  The bill enables the legislature to better assess patient safety and the effectiveness of state boards.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

S.B. 1058 amends the Occupations Code to require each health occupation regulatory agency, not later than February 1 of each year, to file a report with the chairs of the house and the senate committees with primary oversight over the agency that includes the number of persons regulated by the agency, the number of persons who became subject to regulation by the agency in the previous year, the number of persons regulated by the agency by county, a description of any complaints reported to the agency or a description of the complaint categories used by the agency and the number of complaints in each category, the number of complaints investigated by the agency and a description of the final resolution of the complaints, the amount of fees collected by the agency each year, the expenses of the agency, and any unfunded needs of the agency.

S.B. 1058 requires the Health Professions Council to adopt a standard format to be used by health occupation regulatory agencies to report this information not later than January 1, 2010.

S.B. 1058 defines "health care practitioner" and "health occupation regulatory agency."

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2009.