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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Harrison

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/16/2007

HB 1202

SHORT TITLE

Disease Treatment without Evaluation

SB

ANALYST Moser

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

NM Medical Board

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 1202 proposes to amend the NM Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act to allow health care

practitioners to prescribe or dispense controlled substances to the sex partner of a person with a

sexually transmitted disease without a valid practitioner-patient relationship or medical

evaluation. The NM Medical Board would be responsible for promulgating rules to implement

this change, including identification of the diseases that may be treated.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

The medical board advises that Expedited Partner Therapy (EPT) is widely acknowledged as an

efficient and effective way to address the public health concerns posed by sexually transmitted

diseases. When a patient with a sexually transmitted disease presents to a health care practitioner

for treatment, it often does little good to treat only the patient, who may then return to a sex

partner or partners who simply re-infect them. Health care practitioners with experience in this

area know that women are often more willing to seek treatment than their male partners, and the

option of treating the woman patient and then sending medication home for her male partner is

an effective form of addressing the problem.

House Bill 1202 – Page

2

Because EPT is such a relatively safe exception to the requirement for a physician-patient

relationship, the Medical Board recently adopted a rule change that allows treatment of partners

of patients with sexually transmitted diseases, in the absence of a physician-patient relationship

with the partner, when the treatment is conducted in accordance with the Expedited Partner

Therapy guidelines and protocol published by the NM Department of Health.

One concern of the medical board is that HB 1202 tasks the Board with promulgating rules to

implement the bill, but the Board of Nursing also has licensed practitioners who may find

themselves in the same situation – faced with a patient with an STD and in need of prescribing

medication for that patient’s sex partner(s). The medical board proposes an amendment below.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

HB 1202 would require some re-working of Medical Board rules regarding EPT to include

identification of the diseases in question.

TECHNICAL ISSUES

The medical board indicates that the wording proposed by HB1202 is missing any reference to

the underlying practitioner-patient relationship that must exist with the patient whose partner is

being treated. HB 1202 refers to the “sex partner of a person

with a sexually transmitted

disease," when it surely means to refer to the “sex partner of a patient

with a sexually transmitted

disease." See proposed amendment below.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

AMENDMENTS

Page 3, line 2: strike “person" and insert “patient."

Page 3, line 5: before the word “shall," insert “and the New Mexico board of nursing."

GM/nt