Rep. Kim Williams

This Act encourages prescribers and patients to use proven non-opioid methods of treating back pain by doing the following: 1. Prohibits numerical limits on physical therapy and chiropractic care, which might deter prescribers or patients from using those treatments rather than opioids. 2. Adds continuing education requirements for prescribers relating to risks of opioids and alternatives to opioids. 3. Creates a pilot program within the state employee health care plan that allows the use of massage therapy, acupuncture, and yoga for the treatment of back pain.

This Act establishes the High Needs Educator Student Loan Payment Program. The Program allows qualified applicants to apply for a payment from the State to the applicant’s lending agency, to pay a portion of the applicant’s student loan debt. The purpose of the Program is to encourage Educators to work and remain working in certification areas in which Delaware has a shortage and to encourage Educators to work and remain working in Delaware’s hardest-to-staff Schools. The amount of the award shall be no less than $1000 and no more than $2000. This substitute redesignates the chapter where this language will be placed in the code.

Since 1973, § 9605(b) of Title 9 of the Delaware Code (“§ 9605”) has prohibited the recordation of instruments that restrict the sale, gift, transfer, assignment, conveyance, ownership, lease, rental, use, or occupancy of real property to or by any person because of the person’s race, color, creed, sex, national origin, or ancestry. This Act provides a mechanism for owners of real property subject to an instrument that contains a provision that restricts property rights based on the list of characteristics included in § 9605, including the governing documents of a common interest community, to redact and strike the unlawful restrictive covenant language from instruments recorded with a county recorder of deeds before the original enactment of § 9605 or in violation of § 9605. This Act also amends the list of characteristics included in § 9605 that may not be used to discriminate in the sale, gift, transfer, assignment, conveyance, ownership, lease, rental, use, or occupancy of real property to make it consistent with Delaware’s fair housing laws. However, this Act makes clear that provisions that are permitted by the exceptions to the Delaware Fair Housing Act are not prohibited from being recorded by a recorder of deeds. Finally, this Act makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This bill creates regulations concerning the use, distribution and education of Benzodiazepine and Non-benzodiazepine Hypnotics. It require Practitioners to obtain consent from a minor’s parent or guardian prior to prescribing these drugs, and require pharmacist to include a cautionary statement explaining the risks associated with the long term use of these drugs.

The state is currently funding service providers at 75% of the market rate established in a 2014 study that was done by DHSS. This bill would mandate an increase in the rates paid to service providers according to the recommendations of the market study, so that by fiscal year 2021 the state would fund service providers at 100% of the benchmarked rate. These rate increases are necessary to increase the hourly wages of Direct Support Professionals (DSPs), to improve recruitment and retention of these positions, to decrease staff turnover, and to decrease position vacancies. Along with the corresponding costs for program oversight, direct supervision of DSPs, and training, stabilizing the DSP workforce with increased pay is essential to keep people with I/DD safe and integrated to the maximum extent possible in their local communities. The bill also requires that the adequacy of the rate system be evaluated against performance measures that are commonly used to assess program quality.

As poll from 2017 revealed that 31% of people in the United States have been sexually harassed in the workplace. The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released a comprehensive study of workplace harassment in the United States which concluded that between 25% and 85% of women reported having experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. However, the Commission estimated that 75% of all workplace harassment incidents go unreported. The purpose of this bill is to combat sexual harassment in the workplace and to ensure the safety and dignity of all employees in Delaware. This bill defines sexual harassment and makes employers responsible for the sexual harassment of an employee by a supervisor or by another employee when the employer knew or should have known about it and failed to take appropriate corrective action. Moreover, this bill prevents an employer from retaliating against an employee for filing a discrimination charge. This bill includes a requirement that the Department of Labor create an information sheet pertaining to sexual harassment that employers must distribute to employees. Employers having more than 50 or more employees in Delaware will be required to provide sexual harassment training to all employees and supervisory employees which must be conducted every 2 years. This bill also empowers the Department of Labor to investigate violations of this Act and gives the Department jurisdiction over all sexual harassment cases which includes an administrative process. This bill requires the Department of Labor to post the requirements in this bill on its website and perform outreach necessary to educate employers of the requirements. This bill takes effect on January 1, 2019.

This Act promotes the use of primary care by doing the following: 1. Creating a Primary Care Reform Collaborative under the Delaware Health Care Commission. 2. Requiring all health insurance providers to participate in the Delaware Health Care Claims Database. 3. Requiring individual, group, and State employee insurance plans to reimburse primary care physicians, certified nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other front-line practitioners for chronic care management and primary care at no less than the physician Medicare rate for the next 3 years. Despite the demonstrated value of primary care, access to primary care for Delawareans has become increasingly difficult because insurance reimbursement rates fail to support an adequate infrastructure. The national average for primary care spending for an insurance plan is between 6% and 8% of the insurer’s total medical expenditures. Studies recommend, and some states are actively implementing, a 12% to 15% spending rate to have an effective system. Delaware’s average insurance spending on chronic care management and primary care is between 3% and 4%. Nationally, insurance reimbursement for primary care averages between 120% and 140% of Medicare rates. In Delaware the commercial market reimburses independent primary care at rates as low as between 65% and 85% of Medicare rates. Reliable data regarding insurance spending is difficult to obtain due to a combination of contractual restrictions and an absence of mandatory health care price transparency requirements applicable to commercial plans in Delaware This Act simultaneously enacts short-term and long-term solutions to strengthen the primary care system in this State. While the Primary Care Reform Collaborative and the Delaware Health Care Commission study and development long-term recommendations, requiring insurers to reimburse for chronic care management and primary care at the Medicare rates will stabilize existing resources and provide immediate benefits. The Primary Care Reform Collaborative and the Delaware Health Care Commission have reliable data and information from the Delaware Health Care Claims Database to use in this analysis and to make recommendations that will strengthen the primary care system in Delaware.

This Act provides mandatory expungement eligibility to individuals who were convicted of the possession, use or consumption of marijuana prior to Delaware’s decriminalization of these offenses. To be eligible for the mandatory expungement, the marijuana conviction must be the applicant’s only criminal conviction.

This Act implements the recommendations of the March 2105 Autism Educational Task Force report regarding § 1332 of Title 14, the Program for Children with Autism and its Special Staff. Enacted nearly three decades ago, this law established a network of educational programs initially within a separate school structure known as The Delaware Autism Program (DAP). Today, this network continues as a combination of both separate school programs and within local school district support services. However, the current model does not reflect current practices in special education, especially regarding inclusive education, and parents’ desire to have their children educated in their local communities. In addition, the increase in students with an educational classification of autism spectrum disorder (“ASD”) has made it difficult for the Statewide Director to provide the level of services and support that once was offered. This Act establishes the qualifications and duties of the Statewide Director and enhances the current mandatory committee structure to include a Parent Advisory Committee, in addition to the Peer Review Committee and Statewide Monitoring Review Board, to increase family input, monitoring, and protections. This Act creates a 3 year pilot program that revises the concept of DAP toward a system in which the statewide Director will work in collaboration with a team of experts to provide technical assistance and training to districts and educational entities. It allows for and provides adequate resources for all students with ASD in Delaware by eliminating the distinction between DAP-approved programs and other in-district options and by providing in-state experts at a lower cost than out-of-state residential treatment and consultants. The pilot program created under this Act makes changes that recognize and support the need for specialized technical assistance and training staff to be available to build capacity for teachers in all districts and other programs educating students with ASD. These changes expand available supports so that excellent, evidence-based training and technical assistance can be made available to all Delaware schools and the students who attend them. The pilot program created under this Act establishes a technical assistance team of educational autism specialists numbering a ratio of 1 for every 100 students (currently estimated at 15 positions). The fiscal mechanism to support the pilot program will be accomplished through mandated district participation that is consistent with the current needs-based funding system in Delaware and by redirecting state spending towards lower cost, community-based supports from out-of-state residential placements. The number of training specialists will be phased in over several years or until the pilot program ends. Finally, this Act is known as "The Alex Eldreth Autism Education Law" in memory Alex Eldreth, who passed away unexpectedly on November 24, 2017, and his dedication to this work.

This Act makes a technical correction to SB 169 by changing the designations of the new statutes and incorporates Senate Amendment No. 1 to Senate Bill No. 169.