IN SB0284

State employee health plans, Medicaid, accident and sickness insurance policies, and health maintenance organization contracts must provide coverage for Lyme disease and related tick-borne disease testing and treatment prescribed by a licensed physician, physician assistant, or advanced practice nurse.

Covered treatments include short-term or long-term antimicrobial treatments, including long-term antibiotic treatment classified as unproven, experimental, or investigational for Lyme disease or tick-borne disease.

Health care providers cannot be disciplined solely for prescribing, administering, or dispensing long-term antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease or tick-borne disease, provided diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring are documented in the patient's medical record.

Health care providers ordering Lyme disease laboratory tests must provide patients or their legal representatives written information explaining that current testing can produce false negative and positive results, that multiple tests may be required, and that negative results do not necessarily mean the patient does not have Lyme disease.

The bill defines Lyme disease as infection caused by specific Borrelia bacteria or meeting federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveillance case definitions, and defines tick-borne diseases including anaplasmosis, babesiosis, bartonella, ehrlichiosis, and spotted fever; effective July 1, 2018.