Central PA Medicine Summer2020 - 36

LEGISLATIVE UPDATES

those leadership posts other dominos will fall into place to form
the new leadership teams.
It is also worth noting that, in a political rarity, two Philadelphia area incumbents likely were defeated in their primaries.
Both Senator Larry Farnese (D-1) and Senator Daylin Leach
(D-17) succumbed to challenges and these respective districts
will welcome new State Senators in the fall. Another trend that
we continue to see is extreme progressives knocking off more
moderate members of both the Democratic and Republican
parties, incumbents included.

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36 Summer 2020 Central PA Medicine

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Turning our attention to legislation, we remain focused on
getting movement on PAMED's top priority issues. Due to the
nature of the pandemic and most activities being conducted
remotely, there was some optimism that telemedicine legislation
could get done, however, the issue continues to be saddled with
abortion concerns and a deep divide among pro-life legislators
and the Governor's office. PAMED continues to push for advancement of prior authorization reform legislation (HB1194)
and while there are not many session days remaining, we will
be advocating to get this finished in the fall as the General
Assembly returns to Harrisburg. We continue to monitor out
of network-balance billing legislation (HB1862) and oppose
in its current form. This is an important issue at both the state
and federal level and while the issue needs to be addressed, the
current bill falls short of removing the patient from the middle
and is extremely pro-insurer. However, amendments have been
drafted to address these issues and if they were to be included
in the bill, PAMED would change our position to support the
legislation. Also, worth mentioning is that PAMED opposes
HB2352 seeking to provide state framework for addressing
fraud in healthcare involving federal funding. This legislation
is redundant as the Federal government currently provides for
these remedies and grants unprecedented investigative powers and
authority to the state Attorney General. Lastly and ending on a
positive note, HB1947, which seeks to modernize the process by
which graduates of international medical schools become licensed,
advanced to the Senate after final passage by the House with a
vote of 202-0. The legislation reduces the number of residency
years, from 3 to 2, that IMG's must complete prior to applying
for a Pennsylvania medical license. We anticipate this measure
to win Senate approval in the fall.
Other legislation in which PAMED has been actively involved
includes optometric (SB 391 & HB 2561) and CRNP (SB 25
& HB 100) scope of practice proposals both of which are not
expected to move in the near term.
While PAMED's legislative agenda is robust, we anticipate the
legislature's fall schedule to be light in advance of the November
General Election. However, PAMED's legislative affairs staff will
continue advocating for the passage of legislation that improves
patient care and preserves physician autonomy.

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Central PA Medicine Summer2020

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