Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, some of the proponents of this bill also mentioned the opiate use disorder situations in emergency rooms as a justification for the legislation, but I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to note that the existing law includes an exception to the patient consent requirement. A provider can access a patient's substance use disorder treatment records in the case of an emergency as determined by the provider without patient consent. Additionally, nothing in the existing law prevents any provider from asking their patient about their substance use disorder history before prescribing any opioid, especially in the midst of the opioid epidemic. Every provider should ask patients about their opioid use disorder history, and, therefore, under the existing law and every other privacy law, the doctor can learn of a patient's opiate use disorder history by simply asking the patient that. That remains, in my opinion, the optimum way of learning a patient's medical history, because currently our electronic health records aren't interoperable in many cases. Those underlying interoperability issues that prevent information sharing, including the part 2 information in cases where a patient has agreed to share their information with providers, aren't going to be solved by this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.”