The Maryland Senate unanimously approved the Glendening administration's "Patient's Bill of Rights" yesterday, but not before weakening the leverage consumers would have in dealing with cost-conscious HMOs.
Senators voted 47-0 to give patients greater access to specialists and prescription drugs of their choosing. The bill also would guarantee 48-hour minimum hospital stays for anyone undergoing a mastectomy or testicular cancer surgery.
But in approving the measure, senators dropped one of the five "rights" proposed by the governor -- to let specialists be patients' primary health care coordinators. They also weakened a provision ensuring access to prescription drugs not on an insurer's approved list, dropping a guarantee that outside medication would not cost more.
The legislation now goes to a conference with the House of Delegates, which earlier this week adopted an even weaker version -- one that denies patients minimum hospital stays.
The Senate vote followed an impassioned plea for better health insurance oversight from Sen. Leo E. Green, a Prince George's Democrat who has sponsored a bill giving patients a right to sue their health maintenance organizations.
Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell, chairman of the Finance Committee, said he sympathized with Green. But the Baltimore County Democrat said the bill passed yesterday was the best that could be done for now.
Another bill aimed at helping patients fight their HMOs received approval from the Senate Economic and Environmental Affairs Committee yesterday. The measure would make HMO medical directors subject to disciplinary action by the state Board of Physician Quality Assurance.
Glendening hailed the Senate version of his legislation yesterday and urged lawmakers to "do the right thing" by retaining his hospital-stay guarantee.
"A woman who has experienced a mastectomy should not be pushed out the door before she's ready simply to help reduce the hospital's length-of-stay statistics," Glendening said. "That is just wrong."
The governor's stance drew support from advocates for breast cancer survivors and women legislators.
"A lumpectomy or mastectomy is a serious surgery that can leave a woman dazed both physically and emotionally," said Sen. Paula C. Hollinger, a Baltimore County Democrat. "As a result, the patient often needs additional time to recover, on both levels."
But Del. Michael E. Busch, chairman of the House Economic Matters Committee, said the legislature should not be deciding issues like hospital stays for specific surgeries, as the governor's bill proposed.
"You put the legislature in the way of making medical decisions," said the Anne Arundel County Democrat. He noted that even doctors opposed mandating hospital stays.
A health insurance lobbyist said his industry supports the amended legislation, but he said that it gives patients few new benefits.
"Generally speaking, most of what's in the bill existed in the marketplace already," said D. Robert Enten, who represents the Maryland Association of Health Maintenance Organizations.
Sun staff writer C. Fraser Smith contributed to this article.
Pub Date: 3/13/99