Tuesday's Election to Give Way to Lame Duck Sessions, the 2019-2020 General Assembly

This year’s elections will conclude on Tuesday, November 6th and the official political season will give way to wrap up (“Lame Duck”) sessions by current elected officials in the Ohio General Assembly.
 

Both the Ohio Senate and House will return for sessions on Wednesday, November 14 and have plans for approximately 6 to 10 legislative session days scattered over November and December.

Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash

The “House of Medicine” (HOM) is an umbrella term for the coalition of state, local, and specialty societies in Ohio. At our most recent meeting, we reviewed some of the potential items for these upcoming Lame Duck sessions:

•   HB191 & SB301: HOM has concerns about CRNA’s expansion of practice authority

• SB259: HOM supports changes to PA authority – a model of collaborative process between physicians and other provider group seeking changes to their practice authority

• HB 7: HOM supports changes to liability provisions for physicians. This bill passed the House and OSMA is pushing for Senate approval prior to year’s end. Senate Judiciary Committee is chaired by Franklin County’s Kevin Bacon.

• HB479: HOM supportive of PBM changes 

Many other issues are percolating, but may carry over to the new General Assembly in 2019-2020, including:

• Telemedicine coverage

• Prohibitions on expanding insurance coverage mandates

•  Step Therapy

• Regulatory issues: compounding, confidential initial treatment for addiction issues; OARRS compliance

Any CMA members who are interested in these and other issues are invited to the Public Policy meeting on November 15th at 6:00 p.m. at the CMA. The agenda for this meeting will also include reviewing the implications of 2018 election results and  planning for the 2019-2020 legislative session.

To RSVP for this meeting, please contact Cathy Thompson (cthomp@cmafohio.org) or Malcolm Porter (malcolmjporter@aol.com)