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Delay on medical boards bills unwelcome

With House Bill 617 and Senate Bill 366 remaining up for consideration in the state legislature, many medical professionals are getting antsy as they feel, if the bills are passed, it will impact many medical fields in a negative way.

“The regulatory boards for different professions are usually made up by those people in that profession; they issue licenses, but also handle any kind of disciplinary action,” explained Shane Foster, of Athens, trustee for the Ohio Optometric Association.

Foster explained if the bills are passed, many boards will merge together rather than each medical profession having its own board.

“First of all, the boards function pretty well as they are; they have never been reviewed for any kind of any improper behavior and they always come in under budget,” he said. “The bill would place an optometrist in charge of regulating of audiologists…we don’t feel comfortable regulating their profession and vice versa.”

Ohio Sen. Lou Gentile, D-Steubenville, said these bills are companion bills created with the smaller government school of thought to eliminate antitrust issues. Gentile said those in favor are noting the current setup creates competition issues.

Ohio Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, and Ohio Sen. John Eklund, R-Munson Township, are sponsoring Senate Bill 366 and Ohio Rep. Sarah LaTourette, R-Chesterland is sponsoring House Bill 617.

Jennifer Offenberger, director of marketing and public relations for the Memorial Health System, said concerns have been raised by those involved in the Memorial Health System about the two bills.

“As a hospital, we depend upon the various state professional associations to establish appropriate standards for each clinical discipline; these proposed bills will amend the professional oversight and licensure in Ohio,” she explained in an email. “While not a hospital specific issue, we share concerns expressed by our Physical Therapy leaders that representation of this new board may not be fully representative of the professionals that they are charged with oversight of.”

She added they hope the legislature acts with caution when considering the two bills.

“Accordingly, we would advocate that our legislators look closely at this legislation before acting too quickly to change without acquiring insight from affected professionals,” noted Offenberger.

Foster said letters have been sent to legislators in hopes of stopping the bills from passing.

“All the professions who were affected have spoken out against the bills,” he said. “Basically there was a coalition who sent a letter to legislation to not do this and the letter was from all who were affected.”

Gentile said nothing was done with the bill during their lame duck session on Thursday, but said it looks like there will be further discussion.

“At this time, it looks like this conversation may happen at a later date,” he explained. “We need to proceed with some level of caution on how we are considering this; my hope is all the stake holders will have an opportunity to be able to hash it out on how to proceed.”

He said the governor and the Republican majority appear to want to pursue this, but feels there needs to be more examination of how the legislation will affect those involved before moving forward.

“They want to reduce these medical licensing boards; the proponents who want to do that argue there are some antitrust issues as the members who are participating in the professions are also regulating them,” said Gentile. “We’re hearing from a number of professionals in these medical professions who have a lot of concerns on how it will impact on how they will do business and I think it’s important we did not decide in a lame duck session.”

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