Healthcare

Create a new section of KRS Chapter 205 to require the Department for Medicaid Services and any managed care organization with whom the department contracts for the delivery of Medicaid services to provide coverage for doula services; create a new section of KRS Chapter 194A to establish the Doula Advisory Council, council membership, and council duties; require the Cabinet for Health and Family Services or the Department for Medicaid Services to seek federal approval if they determine that such approval is necessary; provide authorization from the General Assembly to make changes to the Medicaid program as required under KRS 205.5372(1).

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 311 to define terms; establish a qualified terminally ill patient's right to voluntarily request medication to self-administer to cause death; establish conditions required to make request; permit patient to rescind request at any time; permit an attending provider to provide medication; establish requirements for attending providers to inform patients and document request; require disposal of unused medications; require report by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services; establish provisions for contracts, insurance policies, and beneficiaries; prohibit applicability of provisions to ending a patient's life by lethal injection, mercy killing, or active euthanasia; establish that a health care provider is not required to provide medication to a qualified patient; permit health care providers to prohibit persons or entities from participating in a qualified patient's request during or on the premises of employment; prohibit reporting a health care provider to a licensing board for participating in a qualified patient's request; state that actions under this Act do not authorize lethal injection, mercy killing, or active euthanasia; establish that actions under this Act do not constitute suicide or homicide; create the offenses of forging or altering a request for end-of-life medications, concealing or destroying a rescession of a request for end-of-life medication, and coercing or exerting undue influence on a terminally ill patient to request or utilize end-of-life medications; create a form for a qualified patient to make a request; create a form for an interpreter for a qualified patient making a request; create a new section of Subtitle 12 of KRS Chapter 304 to establish provisions for insurance policies and beneficiaries of qualified patients; amend KRS 507.020 and 507.030 to create an affirmative defense to a charge of murder and manslaughter in the first degree; provide that the Act may be cited Rena's Law.

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 311 to establish reproductive rights and define terms; amend KRS 18A.225 to remove the prohibition of insurance coverage for abortion; amend KRS 39A.180 to allow the Governor to suspend statutes related to abortion during a declared emergency; amend KRS 156.496 to allow a school district to operate a family resource center that provides abortion counseling; amend KRS 205.010 to permit financial aid for an abortion; amend KRS 205.510 to include abortions or induced miscarriages as medical care; amend KRS 205.560 to allow medical aid payments for abortion; amend KRS 211.603 to allow money in the rape crisis center trust fund to be used for abortion services or education; amend KRS 212.275 to allow health departments to dispense medication for an abortion; amend KRS 213.101 to remove various reporting requirements; amend various sections to remove penalties associated with performing abortions; amend various sections to conform; repeal, reenact, and amend or repeal and reenact KRS 311.783, 311.7710, 311.820, 311.780, 311.810, to conform; repeal KRS 15.241, 213.098, 213.172, 213.174, 213.176, 216B.0435, 216B.200, 216B.202, 216B.204, 216B.206, 216B.208, 216B.210, 304.5-160, 311.710, 311.715, 311.720, 311.723, 311.724, 311.725, 311.727, 311.728, 311.731, 311.732, 311.733, 311.735, 311.750, 311.760, 311.765, 311.770, 311.7701, 311.7702, 311.7703, 311.7704, 311.7705, 311.7706, 311.7707, 311.7708, 311.7709, 311.7711, 311.772, 311.7731, 311.7733, 311.7734, 311.7735, 311.7736, 311.7737, 311.7739, 311.774, 311.7741, 311.7743, 311.781, 311.7811, 311.782, 311.784, 311.7841, 311.785, 311.786, 311.787, 311.790, 311.800, 311.821, 311.822, 311.823, 311.824, 311.825, 311.826, 311.827, 311.830, 311.992, and 315.315; EFFECTIVE, in part, January 1, 2027.

Propose to create a new section of the Constitution of Kentucky to exempt from state and local excise, sales, and use taxes food, food ingredients, prescription drugs, residential utilities, and on-farm utilities; provide ballot language; submit to voters for ratification or rejection.

Amend KRS 304.17A-164 to define terms; prohibit insurers and administrators from requiring insureds to pay cost sharing for a prescription drug that is greater than the cash price; require insurers and administrators to count the amount paid for a covered prescription drug towards the insured's cost-sharing if certain requirements are met; establish requirements for insurers, administrators, and pharmacies for submission of cash price paid by an insured; exempt a state employee health plan from counting certain third-party payments towards the insured's cost-sharing; provide for construction of cost-sharing requirements; amend KRS 304.17C-125, 304.38A-115, 164.2871, and 18A.225 to apply cost-sharing requirements to limited health plans, self-insured state postsecondary education institution employer group health plans, and the state employee health plan; create a new section of KRS Chapter 315 to require pharmacies to comply with cost-sharing requirements; provide that cost-sharing requirements apply to health plans issued or renewed on or after effective date; EFFECTIVE, January 1, 2027.

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 344 to ensure federal law relating to emergency medical treatment and the collection of evidence is not overridden; define terms; prohibit discrimination against health care professionals who decline to perform procedures that violate their conscience; grant health care professionals the right not to participate in services that violate their conscience; exempt health care professionals from liability for exercising these rights; prohibit hiring or licensing authorities from reprimanding health care professionals; require hiring or licensing authorities to provide complaints it has received to health care professionals; establish a civil cause of action for persons injured by violations; provide that the Act may be cited as the Health Care Heroes Recruitment and Retention Act; EMERGENCY.

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 216B to define terms; require hospitals to maintain a publicly available chargemaster of all standard charges, in dollar amounts, and descriptions for all standard facility items or services; require the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to promulgate administrative regulations to establish a template for each facility to use to create the chargemaster, monitor each facility's compliance, and provide administrative penalties; prohibit collective action of debt for noncompliant facilities.

Create a new section of Subtitle 17A of KRS Chapter 304 to define terms; require health benefit plans to provide coverage for counseling interventions for pregnant and postpartum persons at increased risk of perinatal depression, including persons who have suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth; suspend the coverage requirement's application to qualified health plans if the state would be required to make cost defrayal payments; amend KRS 304.17A-099 to conform; amend KRS 205.522, 205.6485, 164.2871, and 18A.225 to require Medicaid, the Kentucky Children's Health Insurance Program, self-insured employer plans provided by the governing board of a state postsecondary education institution, and the state employee health plan to comply with the coverage requirement for counseling interventions; provide that certain provisions apply to health benefit plans issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2027; require the Cabinet for Health and Family Services or Department for Medicaid Services to obtain federal approval if it is determined that such approval is necessary and comply with notice requirements; provide authorization from the General Assembly to make changes in the Medicaid program as required under KRS 205.5372(1); EFFECTIVE, in part, January 1, 2027.

Create a new section of KRS Chapter 216B to require hospitals that offer emergency medical services to have at least 1 licensed board certified or board eligible emergency medicine physician on site and on duty who is responsible for the emergency department at all times the emergency department is open.

Create a new section of KRS Chapter 13A to find 201 KAR 9:270 and 201 KAR 20:065 deficient and void; create new sections of KRS Chapters 311, 313, 314, and 315 to establish that the State Board of Medical Licensure, Board of Dentistry, Kentucky Board of Nursing, and Kentucky Board of Pharmacy shall not promulgate administrative regulations that restrict or limit the prescribing, dispensing, or administering of buprenorphine-mono-product, buprenorphine-combined-with-naloxone, or any other Schedule III, IV, or V medication approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of a substance use disorder; EMERGENCY.