HJBR Sep/Oct 2020

44 SEP / OCT 2020 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE COLUMN NURSING UPDATE ON 2020 LEGISLATION and Actions of the Board HB 449 was introduced by Represen- tative Echols concerning the delivery of behavioral mental health services allow- ing psychiatric mental health nurse prac- titioners to assess patients in need of an emergency certification to deliver those services through telemedicine. The bill was passed on June 1, 2020, and signed into law by Governor Edwards on June 11, 2020. HB 613 by Representative Owen and Senator Reese, with support from 63 rep- resentatives and 24 senators, requires occupational licensing boards to issue a license or permit, pending normal licen- sure, to an applicant who is a member of the military or a United States Department of Defense civilian employee, or an appli- cant who is married to or is a dependent of a member of the military or a United States Department of Defense civilian employee the Louisiana Hospital Association, one of whom would be from a rural hospital. This bill was opposed by the Louisiana State Nurses Association and the Louisi- ana Council of Administrators of Nursing Education. LSBN had not requested ad- ditional board members, and was gravely concerned that board input had not been solicited prior to the bill’s introduction. The bill was voluntarily deferred during Senate Health and Welfare Committee proceed- ings. HB 242 by Representative Mike John- son sought to change the metric of 80 per- cent pass rate for first time NCLEX-RN test takers, to one that would include first time testers and repeaters who passed during the most recent calendar year. This would have removed the ability of LSBN to place a school on probation if their program did who has been assigned to duty in Louisi- ana, based on holding a private certifica- tion and work experience in another state. For military RNs or RN spouses of military employees from other Nurse Licensure Compact states, this bill will have little ef- fect since those individuals can practice here with a multistate license under their privilege to practice. However, it will assist and facilitate licensure of other military members coming to our state to practice who only have single state licenses. The bill was passed on May 31, 2020, and signed into law by Governor Edwards on June 11, 2020. HB 320 by Representative Bagley pro- posed to revise the composition of LSBN by adding two (2) registered nurses who would have been appointed by the gov- ernor from a list of names provided by This being a budget year, and considering COVID-19, LSBN fully expected that there would be minimal activity that affected board operations. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Following is a brief synopsis of bills and resolutions that have implications for LSBN.