Substitute House Bill 116 Summary

• Requires health insurance plans, public employee benefit plans, and Medicaid to provide medication synchronization services allowing patients to receive multiple prescriptions on the same date each month for chronic disease management.

• Permits pharmacists to dispense drugs in quantities less than a 30-day supply when synchronizing medications, and allows pharmacists to dispense dangerous drugs without a prescription in emergency situations when refills are unavailable.

• Establishes consult agreements between pharmacists and physicians to manage patient drug therapy, including authority for pharmacists to adjust dosages, discontinue drugs, and order blood and urine tests within specified protocols.

• Expands physician assistant prescriptive authority for those without master's degrees who meet military service or prior practice requirements, and increases controlled substance record retention from two to three years.

• Permits one certificate of need application for a new nursing home with not more than 20 beds in counties with populations between 40,000-45,000 if beds are transferred from an existing nursing home in a contiguous county.