Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Child Abuse Investigations topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Bill aims to tighten oversight of FACN medical reviews and ensure parents’ access to records
Summary
House Bill 20 71 would clarify HIPAA access to FACN medical reviews and bar FACN members who previously reviewed a DFPS case from later providing FACN consultations, to reduce conflicts and ensure parents and attorneys can obtain the medical records relied on in investigations.
House Bill 20 71 revisits earlier reforms aimed at the Forensic Assessment Center Network (FACN) and seeks to close loopholes that advocates say have allowed medical reviews to become gatekeepers to child abuse investigations without ordinary parental access to records or opportunity for independent second opinions.
The bill would clarify that FACN medical reviews that become part of a child's medical record are subject to HIPAA and are accessible to parents and their attorneys; it would also prevent FACN members who previously reviewed a DFPS case from later providing FACN consultations on the same case, a measure supporters said reduces conflicts of interest. The changes follow earlier legislation (Senate Bill 1578) and were presented as technical and protective fixes to ensure second‑opinion rights and parental access to the same medical information used in investigations.
Judy Powell of Parent Guidance Center described how child abuse investigations often begin in the emergency room and that ER clinicians’ differential diagnoses may not accompany subsequent specialty child‑abuse panels; she said parents’ attorneys sometimes must subpoena records that parents are legally entitled to receive. “If you can't get those records, you can't see who those other doctors are,” she told the committee. Julia Hatcher, president of the Texas Association of Family Defense Attorneys, described local examples where a physician who had been exposed to case facts before seeing the child then became the expert witness for DFPS, and she said the bill would “prevent that doctor who’s been part of the process from actually then testifying for CPS.”
Committee members discussed the balance between protecting children and preserving parental rights, and the chair opened public testimony and left the bill pending for further consideration.
