Panel reviews S.28: broadening provider privacy, policing misleading health advertising and allowing remote screening for medication abortion

Legislative counsel walked the House Committee on Health Care through S.28, a Senate bill that would add new protections for health care providers' contact information, expand advertising and professional‑conduct rules to cover misleading information about health care services, clarify confidentiality for fetal death reports, and create exceptions allowing adaptive, asynchronous questionnaires for prescribing medication abortion.

Jen Harvey of the Office of Legislative Council summarized the bill's components, telling the committee that section 1 would add an exemption in the Public Records Act (1 VSA §317(c)) for contact information in Office of Professional Regulation records unless an applicant designates an address as public. Section 2 and related provisions would expand unprofessional‑conduct language across the Office of Professional Regulation and the Board of Medical Practice to prohibit advertising about health care services that "is untrue or clearly designed to mislead the public about the nature of the services provided." Section 3 would replace language targeted at limited‑services pregnancy centers with broader consumer‑protection provisions…