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ACROSS SESSIONS
- Subject Index: Since 1995
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2016 SESSION
Chairman: Stephen D. Newman
Clerk: Patty Lung
Staff: Thomas Stevens, Ryan Brimmer
Date of Meeting: February 4, 2016
Time and Place: 8:00 A.M. - Senate Room B
Patron: Miller
Public schools; Standards of Learning assessments. Reduces the total number and type of required Standards of Learning assessments to the minimum requirements established by the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The bill requires the Board of Education to adopt and implement a transition plan over two years beginning with the 2017-2018 school year.
Patron: Dunnavant
Health regulatory boards; membership and terms. Amends statutes governing membership and terms of various health regulatory boards. The bill (i) provides that members appointed by the Governor to serve on the Board of Health Professions for four-year terms under current law shall serve such terms or terms concurrent with their terms as members of health regulatory boards, whichever is less; (ii) increases the membership of the Health Practitioners' Monitoring Program Committee from seven to nine members by increasing the number of licensed, certified, or registered practitioners from seven to eight members and adding a citizen member; (iii) increases the membership of the Board of Dentistry from 10 to 11 members by increasing the number of citizen members from one to two; (iv) increases the membership of the Board of Nursing from 13 to 14 members by increasing the required number of registered nurses from seven to eight members and also increasing the number of such registered nurses who must be licensed nurse practitioners from one to two; and (v) reduces the total number of members of the Board of Counseling from 14 to 12 by reducing the number of licensed substance abuse treatment practitioners from three to one. In addition, the bill replaces the requirement that three members of the Board of Counseling be clinical fellows of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy with a requirement that three members be licensed marriage and family therapists and removes the requirement that at least two members representing each specialty on the Board of Counseling shall have been in active practice for a least four years.
Patron: Dance
Nurse practitioners; practicing outside of a patient care team. Authorizes a nurse practitioner with at least 2,000 hours of postlicensure experience to practice without the requirement for collaboration and consultation with a patient care team physician as part of a patient care team or a written or electronic practice agreement between the licensed nurse practitioner and a licensed physician in certain clinical settings. The bill also grants prescriptive authority to such nurse practitioners.
Patron: Wexton
Certain school divisions; plan to fund and phase in full-day kindergarten. Requires each local school board that does not offer a full-day kindergarten program for each kindergarten student in the school division to develop a plan to fund and phase in such program over the course of five school years, including benchmarks for progress at the two-, three-, and four-school year intervals, and submit the plan to the General Assembly in advance of the 2017 Regular Session of the General Assembly.
Patron: Petersen
Virginia College Building Authority; projects; participating institutions. Permits any organization that is exempt from federal income taxation pursuant to § 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and that is owned or controlled by a public institution of higher education in the Commonwealth or whose purpose is to support or otherwise benefit a public institution of higher education in the Commonwealth to finance projects through the Virginia College Building Authority.
Patron: Barker
Public schools; kindergarten instructional time. Directs the Board of Education to promulgate regulations by July 1, 2018, establishing standards for accreditation that include a requirement that the standard school day for students in kindergarten average at least 5.5 instructional hours in order to qualify for full accreditation. The bill has a delayed effective date of July 1, 2018.
Patron: Miller
Board of Education; high school graduation requirements. Removes existing provisions related to standard and advanced studies diplomas and standard and verified units of credit and requires the Board of Education, in establishing high school graduation requirements, to (i) develop and implement, in consultation with stakeholders representing elementary and secondary education, higher education, and business and industry in the Commonwealth and including parents, policymakers, and community leaders in the Commonwealth, a Profile of a Virginia Graduate that identifies the knowledge and skills that students should attain during high school in order to be successful contributors to the economy of the Commonwealth, giving due consideration to critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, communication, and citizenship; (ii) emphasize the development of core skill sets in the early years of high school; and (iii) establish and require students to follow in the later years of high school alternative paths toward college and career readiness that include internships, externships, and credentialing. The bill requires the Board of Education to establish such graduation requirements no later than September 1, 2017, and specifies that such requirements shall apply to each student who enrolls in high school as (a) a freshman after July 1, 2018, (b) a sophomore after July 1, 2019, (c) a junior after July 1, 2020, or (d) a senior after July 1, 2021.
Patron: Garrett
School calendar. Makes local school boards responsible for setting the school calendar and determining the opening day of the school year and eliminates the post-Labor Day opening requirement and "good cause" scenarios for which the Board of Education may grant waivers of this requirement. The bill contains technical amendments.
Patron: Stanley
Nurse practitioners; practicing outside of a patient care team. Authorizes a nurse practitioner to practice without the requirement for collaboration and consultation with a patient care team physician as part of a patient care team or a written or electronic practice agreement between the nurse practitioner and a physician in any clinic that is located in a medically underserved area of the state or an area of the state that has an unemployment rate of one and one-half times the statewide average unemployment rate.. The bill also grants prescriptive authority to such nurse practitioners.
Patron: Wexton
Family life education; child sexual abuse. Requires the Board of Education to include in its standards of learning for family life education standards for age-appropriate instruction in the prevention, recognition, and awareness of child abduction, child abuse, child sexual exploitation, and child sexual abuse. The bill also requires such standards to be taught in kindergarten through twelfth grade.
Patron: Locke
Medical assistance; health insurance; prescription contraceptives. Requires the State Board of Medical Assistance Services to include in its state plan for medical assistance a provision for the payment of medical assistance for any prescribed drug or device approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for use as a contraceptive and requires such provision to provide payments to dispensers for dispensings of prescription contraceptives intended to last for a 12-month period.
The bill also requires health carriers with health benefit plans that cover prescription contraceptives to reimburse their dispenser for dispensings of prescription contraceptives intended to last for a 12-month period. The requirement on health carries applies to health benefit plans delivered, issued for delivery, or renewed in the Commonwealth on and after July 1, 2016.
Patron: Miller
Standards of Learning assessments; students who refuse to take. Prohibits the Board of Education from including in its calculation of the passage rate of a Standards of Learning assessment for the purposes of state accountability any student who has refused to take such Standards of Learning assessment.
Patron: Barker
Public institutions of higher education; social media accounts. Prohibits a public or private institution of higher education from requiring a student to disclose the username or password to any of such student's social media accounts.
Patron: Edwards
Public schools; Standards of Learning assessments. Reduces the total number and type of required Standards of Learning assessments to the minimum requirements established by the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended.
Patron: Stanley
Medical school; clinical rotations. Requires any public institution of higher education that awards medical degrees to require its medical students to participate in at least one clinical rotation in a hospital or clinic located in a medically underserved area of the state as determined by the Virginia Department of Health, in an area of the state that has an unemployment rate of one and one-half times the statewide average unemployment rate, or in a locality with a population of 50,000 or less in the Commonwealth.
Patron: McEachin
Public schools; suspensions. Provides that a student may only be suspended after all feasible alternatives to suspension have been considered.
Patron: Carrico
Nurse practitioners; certified nurse midwives; practicing without a patient care team or practice agreement. Authorizes a nurse practitioner licensed by the Boards of Medicine and Nursing in the category of certified nurse midwife to practice without the requirement for collaboration and consultation with a patient care team physician as part of a patient care team or a written or electronic practice agreement between the licensed nurse practitioner and a licensed physician. Under current law, such practice is authorized only under a Department of Health pilot program. The bill grants prescriptive authority to such nurse practitioners and directs the Boards of Medicine and Nursing to jointly promulgate regulations governing such practice. Finally, the bill repeals the pilot program authorizing such practice as obsolete.
Patron: Hanger
Prescription drug price transparency. Requires every manufacturer of a prescription drug that is made available in the Commonwealth and has a wholesale acquisition price of $10,000 or more for a single course of treatment to report to the Commissioner no later than July 1 of each year information related to the cost of developing, manufacturing, and marketing the prescription drug; any changes in the average wholesale price and average wholesale acquisition cost of the prescription drug; the amount of profits derived from sale of the prescription drug; and the total amount of financial assistance provided to consumers of the prescription drug. The bill requires the State Health Commissioner to cause such reports to be published on a website maintained by a nonprofit entity with which the Commissioner has entered into a contract for such purpose and to annually report on such information, in aggregate form, to the Chairmen of the House Committees on Appropriations and on Health, Welfare and Institutions and the Senate Committees on Finance and on Education and Health.
Patron: Hanger
Prescription Monitoring Program; disclosures. Provides that the Director of the Department of Health Professions may disclose (i) information about a specific recipient contained in the Prescription Monitoring Program to a qualified licensed medical professional employed by the health plan of which the recipient is a member to identify potential misuse of covered substances by recipients for the purpose of intervention to prevent misuse and (ii) information about a specific dispenser or prescriber who participates in a health plan to a qualified licensed medical professional employed by that health plan to identify prescribing practices indicative of fraudulent activity.
Patron: Sturtevant
Public schools; Standards of Learning assessments. Reduces the total number and type of required Standards of Learning assessments to the minimum requirements established by the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended.
Patron: Dunnavant
Prescription Monitoring Program; requirements of prescribers of benzodiazepine or opiates. Changes the time at which a prescriber prescribing benzodiazepine or opiates must request information from the Prescription Monitoring Program from the time the course of treatment is initiated to prior to prescribing the benzodiazepine or opiate and requires a prescriber whose prescribing of benzodiazepine or an opiate continues for more than 90 days after the date of the initial prescription to request information about the recipient from the Director of the Department of Health Professions at least once every 90 days until the course of treatment has ended. The bill creates an exemption from these requirements if (i) benzodiazepine or opiate is prescribed to a patient currently receiving hospice or palliative care; (ii) benzodiazepine or opiate is prescribed to a patient as part of treatment for a surgical procedure, provided that such prescription is not refillable; or (iii) the Prescription Monitoring Program is not operational or available due to temporary technological or electrical failure or natural disaster. The bill eliminates an exception for cases in which the prescriber prescribes benzodiazepines or opiates that have been identified by the Secretary of Health and Human Resources as having a low potential for abuse by human patients. This bill includes a sunset of July 1, 2019.
Patron: McPike
Public schools; Standards of Learning assessments. Reduces the total number and type of required Standards of Learning assessments to the minimum requirements established by the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended.
Patron: Surovell
Students with limited English proficiency; alternative to the eleventh grade Standards of Learning end-of-course English reading assessment. Requires the Board of Education to authorize the use of an English language proficiency assessment such as the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs assessment as an alternative to the eleventh grade Standards of Learning end-of-course English reading assessment for students with limited English proficiency.
Patron: Edwards
Early childhood education. Requires, on and after July 1, 2021, all school divisions to provide early childhood education programs for four-year-olds and five-year-olds who are not eligible to attend kindergarten or at-risk early childhood education programs and whose parents voluntarily wish to enroll them in such programs. These mandated early childhood education programs must be coordinated with the current at-risk early childhood programs, must be consistent with the Department of Education guidelines for early childhood education, and must meet the standards established by the Board of Education. The bill requires the Board of Education to promulgate regulations to implement the orderly phase-in of the required programs with the current voluntary programs for at-risk four-year-olds and at-risk five-year-olds who are not eligible to attend kindergarten. Implementation and funding of the required public school early childhood education programs is contingent on funding in the appropriation act. The grants for the at-risk programs may continue to be provided to public schools or other local agencies; however, the Standards of Quality funding of early childhood education will be provided only to public schools.
Patron: Barker
Students with limited English proficiency; alternative to the eleventh grade Standards of Learning end-of-course English reading assessment. Requires the Board of Education to authorize the use of an English language proficiency assessment such as the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs assessment as an alternative to the eleventh grade Standards of Learning end-of-course English reading assessment for students with limited English proficiency.
Patron: Cosgrove
Virginia Veterans Recovery Program. Creates the Virginia Veterans Recovery Program for the purpose of providing diagnostic services, hyperbaric oxygen treatment, and support services to eligible veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder or a traumatic brain injury. The program reimburses eligible facilities that provide hyperbaric oxygen treatment to an eligible veteran at no cost to the veteran and reimburses the eligible veteran for any necessary travel and living expenses required to receive treatment.
Patron: Cosgrove
Nursing facilities; electronic monitoring. Prohibits a nursing facility from refusing a resident's request for electronic monitoring of his room.
Patron: Cosgrove
Standards of Learning; history and social science. Requires the Board of Education to include in the Standards of Learning for history and social science instruction on the importance of the Battle of Great Bridge.
Patron: Stanley
Nurse practitioners. Eliminates the requirement that a nurse practitioner practice as part of a patient care team with a practice agreement with a patient care physician. The bill also eliminates a Board of Health pilot program authorizing certain nurse practitioners to practice without a practice agreement as the bill makes such pilot obsolete. The bill requires regulations to be promulgated within 280 days of enactment.
Patron: Favola
Standards of Quality; instructional positions. Increases, from 17 to 22 the number of full-time equivalent instructional positions for each 1,000 students identified as having limited English proficiency for which state funding is provided to local school divisions.
Patron: Favola
Teacher dismissal; hearing officer. Requires a school board that elects to appoint a hearing officer to conduct teacher dismissal hearings to appoint such hearing officer for a one-year term at its first meeting of the school year. Under current law, hearing officers are appointed on a per-hearing basis. The bill also requires the school board, prior to appointing the hearing officer, to obtain public comment through a public hearing at least 10 days after reasonable notice to the public in a newspaper of general circulation in the school division. The bill prohibits school boards from appointing as a hearing officer an employee of the appointing school board or the spouse, child, parent, grandparent, or sibling of (i) any member of the appointing school board or (ii) the school superintendent. Finally, the bill provides that in the event that the hearing officer or his relative is involved in the recommendation of dismissal as either a witness or representative, the school board shall conduct the requested hearing.
Patron: Black
Treatment of a patient for Lyme disease. Provides that when patient chooses to accept treatment in accordance with a clinical practice guideline maintained by the National Guideline Clearinghouse a health care provider will not be subject to health regulatory board investigation or hearing based on the election to follow such clinical practice guideline.
Patron: Marsden
Cannabidiol oil and THC-A oil; permitting of pharmaceutical processors to manufacture and provide. Authorizes a pharmaceutical processor, after obtaining a permit from the Board of Pharmacy and under the supervision of a licensed pharmacist, to manufacture and provide cannabidiol oil and THC-A oil. The bill requires the Board of Pharmacy to adopt regulations establishing health, safety, and security requirements for permitted processors. The bill also requires (i) that the manufacture of cannabidiol oil and THC-A oil is done in accordance with requirements for compounding drug products; (ii) a practitioner who issues a written certification for cannabidiol and THC-A oil and the patient or his primary caregiver to register with the Board; and (iii) a permitted pharmaceutical processor, prior to providing cannabidiol oil or THC-A oil, to verify that both the patient or the primary caregiver and the practitioner who issues a written certification have registered with the Board. Finally, the bill provides criminal liability protection for pharmaceutical processors.
Patron: Obenshain
Public charter schools. Makes several changes to the provisions for the establishment and operation of public charter schools, including (i) requiring public charter schools to be administered and managed by a nonprofit education organization under the control of a governing board in lieu of a management committee and (ii) making changes and providing greater specificity regarding (a) the applicability of various laws, regulations, policies, and procedures to public charter schools; (b) the contents of charter applications; (c) the procedure for executing charter contracts and the contents of such contracts; and (iv) the method of funding public charter schools.
Patron: Surovell
Labeling of drug products compounded by nonresident outsourcing facilities. Prohibits any person from administering any drug product compounded by an outsourcing facility located outside the Commonwealth for any purpose unless such drug product is labeled with (i) the name and strength of the compounded medication or a list of the active ingredients and strengths, (ii) the outsourcing facility's assigned control number that corresponds with the compounding record, (iii) an appropriate beyond-use date as determined by the outsourcing facility in compliance with United States Pharmacopeia-National Formulary (USP-NF) standards for pharmacy compounding, and (iv) the quantity of the drug compounded.
Patron: Dunnavant
Department of Medicaid Services; asset location and recovery. Directs the Department of Medical Assistance Services to contract with a vendor for location and recovery of unreported assets of deceased Medicaid recipients.
Patron: Dunnavant
DMAS; request for proposals. Directing the Department of Medical Assistance Services to issue a Request for Proposal for statewide nonemergency medical transportation services.
Patron: Dunnavant
DMAS; Medicaid eligibility and application. Directs the Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS) to require Medicaid eligibility workers to (i) apply the same protocols when verifying income for all Medicaid applicants and recipients whose assets are subject to an asset limit under Medicaid eligibility requirements, including those applicants and recipients who report no earned or unearned income, and (ii) search for unreported assets using all available sources of electronic data, including local real estate property databases, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and Virginia's asset verification system. The bill also requires DMAS to amend the Virginia Medicaid application, after obtaining approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to require a Medicaid applicant to opt out if such applicant does not want to grant permission to the state to use his federal tax returns for the purposes of renewing eligibility.