By: Campbell, et al. S.B. No. 1602
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to reporting requirements by certain health care
facilities for abortion complications; authorizing a civil
penalty.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Subchapter A, Chapter 171, Health and Safety
Code, is amended by adding Section 171.006 to read as follows:
Sec. 171.006. ABORTION COMPLICATION REPORTING
REQUIREMENTS; CIVIL PENALTY. (a) In this section, "abortion
complication" means any harmful event or adverse outcome with
respect to a patient related to an abortion that is performed on the
patient and that is diagnosed or treated by a health care
practitioner or at a health care facility and includes:
(1) shock;
(2) uterine perforation;
(3) cervical laceration;
(4) hemorrhage;
(5) aspiration or allergic response;
(6) infection;
(7) sepsis;
(8) death of the patient;
(9) incomplete abortion;
(10) damage to the uterus; or
(11) an infant born alive after the abortion.
(b) The reporting requirements of this section apply only to
a health care facility that is a hospital, abortion facility,
freestanding emergency medical care facility, or health care
facility that provides emergency medical care, as defined by
Section 773.003.
(c) Each facility described by Subsection (b) shall submit
to the department in the form and manner prescribed by department
rule a quarterly report on each abortion complication diagnosed or
treated at the facility.
(d) The department shall develop a form for reporting an
abortion complication under Subsection (c) and publish the form on
the department's Internet website. The form must include
appropriate abortion complication diagnosis terminology that is
consistent with standard diagnosis terminology used in medical
practice.
(e) A report under this section may not identify by any
means the physician performing an abortion or the patient.
(f) A report under this section must identify the name and
type of facility submitting the report and must include, if known,
for each abortion complication:
(1) the date of the abortion that caused or may have
caused the complication;
(2) the type of abortion that caused or may have caused
the complication;
(3) the probable post-fertilization age of the unborn
child when the abortion was performed;
(4) the name and type of the facility in which the
abortion was performed;
(5) the date the complication was diagnosed or
treated;
(6) the name and type of any facility other than the
reporting facility in which the complication was diagnosed or
treated;
(7) a description of the complication;
(8) the number of previous live births of the patient;
and
(9) the number of previous induced abortions of the
patient.
(g) Except as provided by Section 245.023, all information
and records held by the department under this section are
confidential and are not open records for the purposes of Chapter
552, Government Code. That information may not be released or made
public on subpoena or otherwise, except that release may be made:
(1) for statistical purposes, but only if a person,
patient, or facility is not identified;
(2) with the consent of each person, patient, and
facility identified in the information released;
(3) to medical personnel, appropriate state agencies,
or county and district courts to enforce this chapter; or
(4) to appropriate state licensing boards to enforce
state licensing laws.
(h) A report submitted under this section must meet the
federal reporting requirements that mandate the most specific,
accurate, and complete coding and reporting for the highest level
of specificity.
(i) The department shall develop and publish on the
department's Internet website an annual report that aggregates on a
statewide basis each abortion complication required to be reported
under Subsection (f) for the previous calendar year.
(j) A facility that violates this section is subject to a
civil penalty of $500 for each violation. The attorney general, at
the request of the department, may file an action to recover a civil
penalty assessed under this subsection and may recover attorney's
fees and costs incurred in bringing the action.
(k) The third separate violation of this section
constitutes cause for the revocation or suspension of a facility's
license, permit, registration, certificate, or other authority or
for other disciplinary action against the facility by the
department.
SECTION 2. Not later than January 1, 2018:
(1) the Department of State Health Services shall:
(A) develop the reporting forms required by
Section 171.006, Health and Safety Code, as added by this Act; and
(B) if duplicate reporting requirements exist
under state law, consolidate the reported information into a single
form; and
(2) the executive commissioner of the Health and Human
Services Commission shall adopt the rules necessary to implement
Section 171.006, Health and Safety Code, as added by this Act.
SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 2017.