A wide-ranging healthcare bill is being considered by a Missouri Senate committee.
SB 841 is sponsored by State Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, R-Jefferson City. The supersized bill includes telehealth access, inspection of long-term care centers, and provides new rules for doula services.
“Doula services are, usually when somebody wants to have an in-home birth,” Bernskoetter told Missourinet. “This just kind of sets up some parameters around the doula services, making sure that people are still taken care of, even if they want to have an at-home birth.”
It would include allowing doula services to be covered by the state’s Medicaid program under certain conditions.
The bill would also forbid pharmacy benefit managers from paying smaller reimbursements to members of the 340B discounted drug program.
“(It) seems like insurance companies will always find a way around the things we do. And so, we stop a leak on one side and then we have to stop a leak on another side because they just find another way around it,” Bernskoetter said. “We’re trying to make sure people are getting reimbursed correctly.”
SB 841 would also forbid insurance companies from refusing to cover alternative drugs to opioids.
“Now the insurance company won’t pay for the alternative,” he said. “They’re always coming up with new drugs and this is just another way to make sure that people are getting the drugs they need and (that) the doctors are requesting.”
Bernskoetter’s bill also includes regulations for community paramedic services, dentistry services in state prisons, and would require placing warning signs at hospitals that it’s a “serious crime” to assault an on-duty healthcare worker.
A vote on the bill has not yet been scheduled by the Mo. Senate Committee on Families, Seniors, and Health.
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