The Senate Health and Human Resources Committee has approved a bill that would establish a new fee structure for the furnishment of health care records.
The bill, SB 578, would do so by allowing records to be furnished to a patient’s personal representative and establishing a limit on the total fee allowable for the furnishment of a patient’s health care record.
Stephen New of the West Virginia Association for Justice, said there are problems with the bill, since current law was specifically created to comply with federal law and the proposed bill would violate those agreements.
Senator Charles Trump, R-Morgan, is the lead sponsor of the bill and said he created the bill to address the amount of litigation with the current law by setting clearer cost caps on the documents.
The committee also voted to lay over HB 2459, which would clarify certain requirements of the certificate of need process.
The bill was sent to the committee last year but was never voted on or reported out.
Sonia Chambers, chair of the West Virginia Healthcare Authority, was available to answer questions from members of the committee about the effects of the bill.
Secretary of the DHHR Bill Crouch was also present to field questions from the committee, but he said the DHHR did not have time to review the bill prior to the meeting.
Senator Ron Stollings, D-Boone, motioned that the committee lay the bill over until the bill could be further reviewed by those parties affected by it.
The committee is in recess until 10 a.m. tomorrow, where they will meet again in room 451M in order to finish addressing the previous bill, as well as Senate Bills 386 and 47, which were also on the agenda for today.
