2013 Revisions to the Texas Futility Law?

The 2013 biannual Texas legislative session is just over two months away.  So, the Texas Hospital Association has released a two-page summary of talking points for the session.  Included, along with with issues like Medicaid and insurance reform, are three paragraphs on the Texas Advance Directives Act:




Texas has addressed end-of-life care issues very comprehensively, and state law includes protections for patients as well as physicians and other providers. Advance directives allow a patient to direct his/her care in the future when the individual is unable to make his/her wishes known. An advance directive applies only when the patient is declared terminally or irreversibly ill and is unable to participate in decision-making.



Over the past several sessions, attempts have been made to nullify the dispute resolution process by requiring “treatment until transfer,” which in some cases means indefinitely. Such a provision destroys the physician patient relationship, increases the risk of frivolous lawsuits and injects a pre-determined government decision into a personal, private situation. 



Hospitals support revisions to strengthen and clarify the law, but a “treat until transfer” provision does neither and is a change that hospitals continue to oppose.



If experience from the 2007, 2009, and 2011 sessions is any guide, there will surely be several controversial bills (with dozens of hours of hearings) directed at improving and at killing Health & Safety Code 166.046.