Senate Health committee advances six health and human services bills, sends several to appropriations

The Senate Health and Provider Services Committee on March 1 considered a package of health and human services proposals, advancing each bill to the next step in the process and sending multiple measures to appropriations for fiscal review.

Committee members spent most of the morning on House Bill 1003, a broad health-care package that was amended in committee and recommitted to the Appropriations Committee after unanimous approval. The bill’s provisions — as presented in committee by Senator Johnson — address site-of-service “site-neutrality” coding and reporting, a uniform discounted-cash price requirement for labs and diagnostic imaging, expanded price-transparency and good‑faith estimate rules, and continued treatment of prior authorization and “right-to-try” provisions. Committee members removed 340B-related language from the measure, and Senator Johnson said the bill keeps some contracting, data‑ownership and audit-rights language while deferring additional changes on anti‑competitive contracting to later work.

Senator Johnson said the amended bill defines a discounted cash price and narrows the outpatient services required to publish uniform prices to an explicit top‑100 list of ambulatory surgery/diagnostic codes; it also drops the Secretary of Health and Human Services from some governance roles tied to the All‑Payers Claims Database pending further work on interoperability and feasibility. The committee took two omnibus amendments (amendments 15 and 17) by consent and then approved recommitment to appropriations by a 12‑0 vote.

Votes at a glance - House Bill 1003 (health care price transparency, site of service, surprise billing, prior authorization): Committee vote 12‑0; recommitted to Appropriations. Motion: move as amended (omnibus amendments 15 and 17 taken by consent). Presenter: Senator Johnson. Notes: 340B language removed; top‑100 CPT approach for ambulatory surgery center price lists; good‑faith estimates allowed 1–2 business days rather than immediate or at‑discharge; prior authorization language retained pending separate Senate bill (SB480).

The committee also advanced House Bill 1595, a rewrite of Indiana’s Long‑Term Care Partnership program that seeks to adopt options consistent with the federal Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) partnership rules. Representative Carball (author) and supporters said the proposal aims to make partnership policies more affordable by changing design rules such as inflation‑protection requirements that have sharply raised premiums for partnership contracts. Supporters — including industry representative Chris Barthouse of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Indiana chapter — said changing the compounding inflation requirement and other design elements would lower premiums and encourage more companies to…