ISMS Advocacy Brings Medicine Wins to Spring Legislative Session!
April 22, 2022
Your ISMS legislative team has worked hard during the Spring legislative session advocating for Illinois physicians. Here’s a Springfield recap of victories for medicine!
To start off, the Spring 2022 Legislative Session was abbreviated this year, ending on April 8 instead of when the session usually wraps up at the end of May. The shorter session was due to the change in Illinois’ Primary Election date – from the second Tuesday in March to June 28. Lawmakers will now have additional time to campaign “back home.
Legislative wins pertaining to patient access to care and healthcare workforce issues:
- Bills were passed to fund state loan repayment programs for healthcare professionals practicing in rural areas.
Recurring battles our ISMS legislative team successfully pushed back:
- 10 hours of CME on cultural competency training per licensure cycle.
- Training on how to identify victims of human trafficking per licensure cycle.
- Senate Bill 3920 would have required that prescribers add a diagnosis to prescriptions.
- Senate Bill 2535 would have required prescribers to offer a prescription for naloxone to a patient when certain conditions are present and would have also required that prescribers not only counsel the patient on the addictive nature of the opioid being prescribed and the benefits of naloxone, but a designee of the patient as well. ISMS successfully negotiated an amendment to the bill, which passed the General Assembly. The amended bill states that when prescribing an opioid, prescribers must let patients know the risk and benefits of the prescription and that naloxone is available.
If you have any questions, please contact ISMS Senior Vice President of State Legislative Affairs Erin O'Brien by email.