Delegate Terri Hill’s Enacted Legislation by Year-Primary Sponsor

2019 HB251 NANA: Department of Aging-Grants for Aging-in-Place Programs Supports those wishing to age in place by authorizing the Maryland Department of Aging to make grants to nonprofit organizations and area agencies on aging to establish and expand current aging-in-place programs for seniors. People age 65 are expected to grow to be 21.7% of the population by 2040. As a result of these sweeping demographic changes, meeting the housing-related needs of older adults will require a range of responses. According to the AARP Public Policy Institute, 87 percent of adults age 65 and over want to stay in their current home and community as they age.

2019 HB0417 Water Pollution Control-Notification of Sewer Overflows
The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) advises that an average of 21 sewer overflows and treatment bypasses occur each week.  This legislation improves public notification of stream and river contamination due to a sewer overflow or treatment plant bypass, including requirements for posting on agency websites, at the site of the overflow in English and Spanish, and on local agency social media websites. It also requires timely notification to downstream jurisdictions and county governments, affected State parks, the Department of Natural Resources, and any other affected local, State, or federal land manager. 

2019 HB0751 Health Insurance-Prior Authorization-requirements
Improves the process and decreases delays in getting prescriptions refilled by prohibiting unnecessary reauthorization requirements and removing much of the redundancy, especially for patients with chronic conditions. Although additional improvements are desirable from patient, provider and pharmacist perspectives, the provisions passed reflect broad stakeholder agreement. 

2019 HB1183 Public Health-Treatment for the Prevention of HIV-Consent by Minors
On average, three Marylanders are diagnosed with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) every day and 22 percent of new HIV diagnoses in the state in 2017 were for people 24 and younger. Minors aged 14-18 are currently unable to access preventative treatment for HIV without parental notification or consent. This bill now allows a minor to receive HIV preventative prescriptions without parental consent. 

2019 HB1166 – Howard County-Authority to Impose Fees for Use of Disposable Bags Americans dispose of more than 100 billion plastic bags every year, and only a fraction are ever recycled. This bill authorized Howard County to impose a fee on stores for the use of disposable bags as part of a retail sale of products. The fee may not exceed 5 cents for each disposable bag used. The county may only use fee revenue collected for an environmental purpose, including the establishment of a program to provide reusable bags to individuals in the county or the implementation, administration, and enforcement of the fee. 

2019 HB869 – Howard County-Alcoholic Beverages-Marketplace License establishes a marketplace license allowing the owner, manager, or lessee of an single structure to procure a license to sell alcoholic beverages through one or more vendors and agents within the structure via bar service, draft service, and take home service using growlers or other such vessels.

2018 HB135 Health Insurance-Coverage for Male Sterilization
On March 5, 2018, the IRS issued Notice 2018-12, which stated that a health plan that provides benefits for male sterilization before satisfying the minimum deductible for an High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) does not constitute an (HDHP), regardless of whether such coverage is required by state law. However, the notice provides transitional relief until calendar 2020. Thus, until 2020, an individual will not be treated as failing to qualify as an eligible individual merely because the individual is covered by a health insurance policy or an arrangement that fails to qualify as an HDHP solely because it provides (or provided) coverage for male sterilization without a deductible or with a deductible below the minimum deductible for an HDHP.

2018 HB517 Prescription Drug Monitoring Program-Data request Exemption
This bill expands an exemption from the requirement to query the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP). A prescriber is not required to request data from PDMP when prescribing or dispensing an opioid or benzodiazepine to treat or prevent acute pain, for a period of up to 14 days, following a surgical procedure.

2017 HB730 Health Insurance-Coverage for Diabetes Test Strips
According to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 467,041 adults in Maryland have diabetes. Individuals with diabetes use blood glucose monitors and diabetes test strips to routinely monitor their blood sugar levels. Many diabetics must test their blood sugar levels multiple times per day. This legislation prohibits insurers, nonprofit health service plans, and health maintenance organizations from imposing a deductible, copayment, or coinsurance requirement on diabetes test strips

2017 HB1522 Needs Assessment for Student School-Based Behavioral Health Services According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up to one in five children experience a diagnosable mental health disorder in a given year. Behavioral and emotional issues can act as a barrier to academic success, as well as create disciplinary and attendance problems in school. Research indicates that school mental health programs can improve educational outcomes by decreasing absences, decreasing discipline referrals, and improving test scores.  The National Association of School Psychologists states that 75% to 80% of children and youth in need of mental health services do not receive them because existing services are inadequate. Of those who do receive services, 70% to 80% receive mental health services in schools. This legislation requires the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the State Department of Education to conduct a needs assessment for student school-based behavioral health services.

2016 HB11 Health Insurance-In Vitro Fertilization-Use of Spouse’s Sperm
This provision prohibits discrimination for In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) treatments on the basis of sexual orientation in plans covered by the ACA, such as qualified health plans offered on the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange.

2016 HB998 State Board of Physicians-Physician Licensing Reciprocity
This bill requires the State Board of Physicians (MBP) to license an applicant to practice medicine in Maryland if the applicant became licensed as a physician in another jurisdiction under requirements substantially equivalent to Maryland licensing requirements and the jurisdiction in which the applicant is licensed offers a similar reciprocal licensing process for individuals who are licensed to practice medicine in Maryland.

2015 HB838 Health Insurance-Coverage for Infertility Services
The bill clarifies that carriers that provide pregnancy-related benefits may not exclude benefits for outpatient expenses related to IVF for married couples if, for a patient whose spouse is of the opposite sex, the patient’s oocytes are fertilized with the patient’s spouse’s sperm. Prohibiting insurers from requiring as a condition of coverage, for a patient who is married to an individual of the same sex, that the patient’s spouse’s sperm be used in the covered treatments or procedures or that the patient demonstrate infertility exclusively by means of a history of unsuccessful heterosexual intercourse.