Committee hears bill to let interdisciplinary teams consent for incapacitated patients when no decisionmaker exists

The House Human Services Committee held a hearing on Senate Bill 2,297, a proposal to let a neutral interdisciplinary team provide informed consent for non‑emergency but urgent medical care when a patient lacks capacity and no authorized decisionmaker can be identified.

Sponsor Senator Kirsten Rohrs, District 27, told the committee the bill responds to a growing number of hospitalized patients who lack family or other decisionmakers and can become ‘‘stuck’’ in hospitals while clinicians wait to find someone to sign consent forms. Rohrs said hospitals sometimes absorb or write off large costs when patients remain hospitalized solely for lack of a decisionmaker.

The bill would add a last‑resort option: a team made up of at least three health care professionals, none of whom are on the…