Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Forensic Exams Funding topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Nevada bill would shift cost of forensic sexual- and strangulation-exams from counties to state
Summary
Senate Bill 87 would let licensed medical facilities bill the state directly for forensic exams after sexual assault or strangulation and would remove a $10,000/10-exam county cap, sponsors and advocates told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
State Senator Melanie Scheibel introduced Senate Bill 87 on behalf of the Senate Judiciary interim committee, saying the bill would require the state to pay for forensic examinations performed after sexual assault and strangulation and allow licensed medical facilities to bill the state directly.
The move is aimed at removing a cap in current practice that allows counties to bill the state for up to 10 exams or $10,000 a year and at streamlining billing so hospitals and forensic nurses can be reimbursed more reliably, Scheibel said. "SB87 is a product of the interim judiciary committee," Scheibel said when she opened the hearing and turned the presentation over to Liz Ortenberger of SafeNest.
SafeNest CEO Liz Ortenberger told the committee that the current county-billing arrangement leaves Nevada under-resourced for forensic nursing. "Clark County has 1 forensic nurse for 2,400,000 people, 3,000,000 people on a busy weekend," Ortenberger said. She later clarified the local counts, saying Clark County has 26 forensic nurses but that none are able to perform forensic exams under the current billing setup. Ortenberger described the existing limit as a governor of "$10,000 or 10 exams," and said University Medical Center (UMC) reported doing about "300 SANE exams a month." She told senators the bill would remove that $10,000/10‑exam cap and allow forensic nurses employed by licensed medical facilities to bill the Department of Health and Human Services directly.
Ortenberger also told the committee the county-billing system disadvantages tribal communities because tribal providers cannot bill counties under the present framework; as a result, tribal facilities that perform strangulation exams have not been reimbursed in some cases.
Committee members asked for scope and cost details. Ortenberger cited statewide figures from the uniform crime report, saying, "we had about 1,600 rapes last year," and said SafeNest internal data indicate roughly 20–25 percent of domestic violence incidents carry a strangulation marker. Ortenberger said Clark County records show about 22,000 domestic violence cases a year and that survivors often face waits of "6, 8, 18 hours" for exams when advocates are present in emergency departments.
Ortenberger and other supporters asked the committee to consider small technical amendments about which entities bill the state; she said the bill would likely include amendments clarifying billing routes through the Department of Health and Human Services. Testimony in support came from Serena Evans, policy director for the Nevada Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, and Jeff Rogan on behalf of Clark County, both of whom said the bill would ease pressure on a single nurse examiner in Clark County.
The hearing produced questions from committee members about the statewide volume of exams and whether the reform would affect the backlog of SANE kits. Ortenberger said increasing the number of exams billed to the state would probably increase the number of kits entering the forensic-processing pipeline and would not itself reduce existing lab processing backlogs.
No formal vote or motion occurred during the hearing; proponents said they anticipate technical amendments and sought unanimous support from the committee.
