A Richmond lawmaker pushed two distinct health care measures to the finish line on Friday, one addressing the nursing profession and another on ambulance payments.
Rep. Brad Barrett, a Republican, said he was “proud of what we created here” on the nursing bill, which had provisions from three separate bills amended into it on the final day of the 2024 legislative session.
House Bill 1259 originally included language to reduce hurdles for foreign-educated nurses working in Indiana, which the Senate stripped to avoid duplicating efforts in one of their bills. It also will eliminate the 18-month requirement for nurse preceptors, who fill a mentor role, in favor of letting employers decide.
On Friday, lawmakers added language from Senate Bill 139 to establish a therapeutic psilocybin research fund — a proposal that passed the Senate and a House committee but didn’t make it to the House floor — along with House Bill 1327, which required health entities to report their ownership data. The Indiana Department of Health will then post that information on a public-facing dashboard.
Barrett said the psilocybin research, funded by federal dollars or donations, would “really help gain ground in a very frustrating mental health space.” Committee testimony emphasized the rigorous oversight and potential benefits of the drugs for treatment-resistant depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and others.
Barrett’s peers approved his bill on a 93-5 vote and it passed the Senate on a 45-1 vote.
Ambulances payments
House Bill 1385 would require health plans to pay out-of-network ambulance providers for transports at rates set by local units. In the absence of a local rate, insurers would pay either the provider’s billed charges or at 400% of the Medicare base rate — whichever is less.
Senators amended the House proposal to strike the state health plan to avoid a fiscal, or cost, which could sink the bill in a non-budget session and to refine language around hospital ambulances.
“There’s two mechanisms for hospitals to negotiate with insurance. One is as a global negotiation and we’re leaving that space alone,” said Barrett in a rules committee. “The other option is for hospitals to do this just as private ambulances would do (this) and have separate negotiations. That is left in the bill.”
On Friday, lawmakers from both chambers negotiated to add Senate Bill 10 to the final version, a measure that would establish a Community Cares grant program to help localities establish health programs and reduce public safety expenses. Barrett noted Senate Bill 10 passed the Senate and his Public Health Committee unanimously but didn’t get through Ways and Means.
“Only with the (Ways and Means) chairman’s release was it included in this,” Barrett said. “It was a grant that has been established … overseen by the Division of Mental Health and Addiction through (the Family and Social Services Administration) and unfunded. But a mechanism for funding exists in the event that there are federal dollars available.”
Barrett noted the state could choose to fund it in the future or the grant could accept donations.
The bill passed the Senate on a 45-2 vote. In the House it had unanimous support.
Both bills are headed to the governor.