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Conference fails to resolve Senate amendments to HB 560 on parental access to minors’ medical records, restraining orders and DUI penalties
Summary
Conferees debated a range of Senate floor amendments attached to House Bill 560 — including language about parental access to minors' medical records, treatment of out-of-state restraining orders, and enhanced DUI penalties — but the House refused to accept the Senate changes and the conference ended without agreement.
Conferees convened to consider the Senate’s floor amendments to House Bill 560 and spent substantial time on three topics: parental access to minors’ medical records, a provision to recognize certain out-of-state domestic-violence restraining orders, and proposed harsher administrative penalties for refusal to submit to breath testing and for aggravated blood-alcohol content.
Senator Abbas presented the floor amendment language affecting HB 560 and described three changes: adding recognition for out-of-state restraining orders (citing RSA 173-B:13), inserting HIPAA-style “professional judgment” language for medical records, and a confidentiality provision intended to align certain record protections with other recent bills. Senator Perkins-Quoca explained that the Senate amendment included language to protect minors’ confidential medical records in a manner consistent with the parental-rights legislation discussed earlier in the session.
Representative Powell (House) raised a legal objection to a phrasing choice in the Senate amendment: the amendment used the term “confidential” where House counsel had previously used the statutory term “privileged.” Powell said the distinction matters for how the records operate in court and that the House’s language had been changed in HB 10 to use the statutory citation (33:32-I:1-a). Senator Grama responded by explaining the difference between privilege and confidentiality in practice and why the Senate believed the “confidential” formulation suited medical-record protection outside a court process.
Representative Raymond (Freeman) and other House members pressed a separate practical concern: providers told committees that creating a two-tiered patient-portal system (redacting records so parents can see some items but not others) would be cost-prohibitive and might reduce existing parental portal access. Raymond said the Senate’s change could unintentionally remove routine parental access in the absence of workable redaction technology.
On DUI-related language the Senate attached (similar to SB 54 provisions), conferees discussed two elements: an administrative suspension for refusal to submit to breath testing (the Senate language would extend the suspension period) and an aggravated-offense enhancement for a blood-alcohol content of 0.16 or higher. Senators described the provisions as consumer-safety and public-safety measures; House members said they were concerned that the DUI language may not belong attached to this bill and asked to caucus.
After caucuses, the chair reported that the House could not accept the Senate amendments. The conference ended without agreement and the house conferees asked for the respective underlying bills or sections to be retained for further work.
