Lawmakers have advanced a bill that will limit state health board investigations and hide thousands of regulatory actions taken against medical professionals.
House Bill 2686, sponsored by Rep. Selina Bliss, passed through the Health and Human Services Committee on a party-line vote.
Bliss, who’s a Republican from Prescott, told her fellow legislators she introduced the bill to standardize and reign in Arizona’s nearly two dozen health boards.
“It’s about getting people to work, keeping people at work,” Bliss said. “Boards have been known at times to be a little over-onerous. And I know they’ll disagree when it comes to licensure and people keeping their licenses. Let’s put it that way, for a nice way to put it.”
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ABC15 has spoken with multiple health board officials.
While some agree that some standardization of their practices may be a good thing, they raised significant concerns about portions of HB2686 that would restrict their ability to investigate and decrease public transparency.
Arizona’s nursing board had two employees speak in opposition to the bill, including Associate Director Diane Caruso, who works in the complaint and investigation unit.
“I’m here to ask you to vote now on HB2686,” she told lawmakers at the hearing. “We’re concerned with multiple aspects of the bill. But mostly for the safety of patients.”
HB2686 would limit health board investigations to what’s in initial complaints.
“It's common to see something come forward that was not mentioned in the original complaint,” she said.
Caruso added, “Let’s just say the board receives a complaint for a nurse poorly documenting her administration of controlled substances. And over the course of the investigation, the investigator...discovered this nurse has caused some patient harm and even a death. And 2686 appears to prevent the board from acting on this new information. This isn’t hypothetical. It’s actually happened.”
Lobbyists representing multiple health professional interest groups testified in support of the bill.
Some praised the proposed restrictions for investigations and other aspects of the bill including a ban on anonymous complaints and requiring boards to complete investigations within 180 days.
Health board officials told ABC15 those changes would impact public safety and would require them to hire more staff.
“We currently open about 3,500 cases over a two-year period, so 3,500 investigations,” Caruso said. “Average caseload for senior investigators is 140…The average hours it takes to complete an investigation is 30 hours.”
Caruso that would require an estimated $2 million increase in funding annually for the nursing board alone.
HB2686 would also reverse current state law and make non-disciplinary actions confidential and exempt from public disclosure.
While a classification of “non-discipline” sounds innocuous, a past ABC15 investigation found the actions document everything from simple paperwork issues to arrests and even serious patient care issues.
Non-disciplinary actions have long been considered to be public records.
But for many years, they were largely hidden from the public because they were not posted on the websites of Arizona’s health boards.
Patients would have to call and inquire if there were additional actions not shown on a health professional’s public profile.
That changed in 2017 after aseries of ABC15 investigations.
The state passed a law requiring health boards to post non-disciplinary actions on their websites.
HB2686 still needs to pass the full House of Representatives and then the state Senate before going to Governor Katie Hobbs for approval.
As written, it appears headed for a veto.
“Governor Hobbs believes we need more transparency, not less,” according to an emailed statement from a Governor’s Office spokesperson. “She will continue to fight to deliver that transparency to keep Arizonans safe and hold bad actors accountable.”
Contact ABC15 Investigator Dave Biscobing at Dave@ABC15.com.
