AN ACT relating to the recruitment and retention of medical professionals and declaring an emergency.
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 medical care providers who decline to perform procedures that violate their conscience; grant providers the right not to participate in or pay for services that violate their conscience; exempt providers from liability for exercising these rights; prohibit the State Board of Medical Licensure from reprimanding medical practitioners and require the board to provide complaints it has received to medical practitioners; establish a civil cause of action for persons injured by violations; provide that the Act may be cited as the Healthcare Heroes Recruitment and Retention Act; EMERGENCY.
2024 Regular Session
(1) A medical practitioner or health care institution shall have the right to not participate in or pay for any medical service which violates his, her, or its conscience.
(2) A medical practitioner or health care institution shall not be liable civilly, criminally, or administratively for exercising his, her, or its right of conscience with respect to a medical service.
(3) A medical practitioner or health care institution shall not be subject to discrimination in any manner [...] as a result of his, her, or its decision to decline to participate in a medical service on the basis of conscience.
The State Board of Medical Licensure shall not reprimand, sanction, deny, revoke or threaten to revoke a license, certification, or registration of a medical practitioner [...] unless the board demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that the medical practitioner’s speech was the direct cause of physical harm to a person with whom the practitioner had a practitioner-patient relationship within the three (3) years immediately preceding the incident of physical harm.
| date | time | type | location | description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-03-13 | 09:00 | Hearing | Annex Room 129 | Senate Committee On Health Services |
| 2024-03-06 | 09:00 | Hearing | Annex Room 129 | Senate Committee On Health Services |
History
| Date | Action |
|---|---|
| 2024-03-22 | received in House |
| 2024-03-22 | to Committee on Committees (H) |
| 2024-03-21 | posted for passage in the Regular Orders of the Day for Thursday, March 21, 2024 |
| 2024-03-21 | 3rd reading, passed 29-7 with Committee Substitute (1) |
| 2024-03-13 | reported favorably, to Rules with Committee Substitute (1) |
| 2024-03-12 | taken from Health Services (S) |
| 2024-03-12 | 2nd reading |
| 2024-03-12 | returned to Health Services (S) |
| 2024-03-11 | taken from Health Services (S) |
| 2024-03-11 | 1st reading |
| 2024-03-11 | returned to Health Services (S) |
| 2024-02-26 | to Health Services (S) |
| 2024-02-21 | introduced in Senate |
| 2024-02-21 | to Committee on Committees (S) |