Week Sixteen - May 8, 2009

This electronic publication, known as The Advocate, is brought to you each Friday by your Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with our friends at Devine Millimet & Branch, and ActiveEdge. Please use this piece to review what has happened in Concord this past week, read about our Chamber's lobbying efforts relating to those activities, and preview what we are doing on behalf of our Chamber members in the coming week.

This Week’s Update

This was a week where medical records, medical marijuana, tax credits and pre-trial screening panels received prime media and legislative attention. However, for the business community, much more was very quietly happening.

Privacy, Privacy, Privacy

A broad coalition of healthcare providers, insurers and the business community, including your Chamber of Commerce, all united over the past several weeks in opposition to HB 580, a bill that is attempting to create severe restrictions on the sharing of medical records between care providers and agencies for NH patients. This is one of those rare occasions when dozens of varied groups from disparate backgrounds and mission are united in opposition to a single bill. And it worked, as the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 4-1 to kill the bill.

Supporters of this bill feel it’s necessary in order to better protect the privacy of NH residents, who don’t want their personal information available to just anyone. However, hospitals and healthcare professionals in New Hampshire take extraordinary care to protect patients’ privacy. They work hard to ensure that patients are protected and that patients understand and exercise their rights to their privacy.

The New Hampshire healthcare community supports HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act - as the national standard for patient privacy. The key to quality healthcare is the balance between a practitioner’s access to health information and the patient’s privacy of his or her health information. HIPAA achieves this balance. HB 580 does not. It will impede practitioners’ access to critical health information necessary for the provision of quality healthcare services that patients have come to expect.

The new federal stimulus legislation, ARRA, provides $19 billion for investment in Health Information Technology. Approximately $17 billion of that will be directed to hospitals and healthcare providers through Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments. However, these enhanced payments will only be made if the healthcare provider can show that their electronic medical record system has been federally certified and that they can demonstrate meaningful use of their electronic medical records. If HB 580 passes, these payments will be at risk as HB 580 will put restrictions on electronic medical records development and implementation here in NH.

We feel that HB 580 would create a cumbersome, complicated and confusing state law that will inhibit the growth and usefulness of electronic medical records, would stifle efforts to improve efficiency and quality of patient care, and may actually create unsafe situations for patients.

Access to comprehensive patient health information is essential for patient safety. Regulation regarding the exchange of health information should be addressed at the federal level, not the state level. HB 580 is fraught with problems as the Senate Committee understood. We are working hard with the healthcare community to make sure the full Senate votes down HB 580 next week.

In Other News

SB 182, the legislation establishing a committee to study business tax credits, has passed the House Ways and Means Committee and is off to the full House on May 20th. The bill was amended to add members of the House Ways and Means Committee to the Study Committee. This obviously will be a very important study for the business community once the session ends and the study committees start to do their business, and we will engage with the study committee completely.

HB 648, the medical marijuana legislation, passed the House and Senate and is off to a Committee of Conference. There are concerns in the language for the business community. This bill states “An employer shall not discriminate against an individual in hiring, termination, or any term or condition of employment, or otherwise penalize an individual, if the discrimination is based upon either of the following: 1) the individual’s status as a qualifying patient or designated caregiver; or 2) a qualifying patient’s positive drug test for marijuana components or metabolites, unless the patient used, possessed, or was impaired by marijuana on the premises of the place of employment or during the hours of employment.”

As we read this language, an employer could not disqualify an applicant or terminate an employee for a positive drug test as long as the individual is a patient or caregiver. However, there is no penalty for creation or possession of a false registry identification card (card that allows you to use marijuana for medical purposes), and with the strict privacy protections under HIPPA, there is no way an employer can verify if the person in possession of the registry ID card is actually a “qualified patient.” In other words, one could see a scenario in which an employee fails a drug test, claims that he or she is a qualified patient for medical marijuana, and it would be very difficult for the employer to verify such qualification. This all leaves the business in a bit of a quandary.

The Chamber has not taken a formal position on this bill, but the quandary described above does give a business owner pause for consideration.

HB 572, the trial lawyers’ legislation that changes the procedures for pre-trial screening panels for medical injury claims, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 4-1. The bill will prohibit a live witness in the pre-trial screening panel.

The trial lawyers say the panels are mini-trials and too expensive. But that was the purpose when the law was passed, a mini-trial that would hopefully end in a settlement or in dropping the case, i.e., less burdensome and less expensive on the entire system. There are two groups independently reviewing this law - a legislative oversight committee and Chief Justice Robert Lynn’s review panel. We should wait for these groups to reach a conclusion before moving forward with this change.

The Chamber opposed this legislation. We will work to reverse the committee decision.

The Senate will vote on HB 572 on Wednesday, May 13th.

Coming Up Next Week

Stay tuned for more updates next week.

Acknowledgements

This weekly update is made possible by the generous support of Devine Millimet & Branch, one of the state’s top law firms and our Chamber’s contracted representative in Concord. If your business has a legislative or local issue that needs strategic consulting and attention, they are a valuable resource that can help navigate you through both local and state processes.

This weekly update is designed and maintained by our friends at ActiveEdge, and we thank them for their help in delivering this piece to your inbox every Friday!

If you have questions about this update, or comments to share with us about other issues in Concord, please email Chris Williams at cwilliams@nashuachamber.com. We want to be sure we're representing you to the best of our ability, so do not hesitate to reach out to us!

J. Christopher Williams
President & CEO
Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce
151 Main St.
Nashua, NH 03060
Phone: 603.881.8333
Fax: 603.881.7323