Contact Gov. to Assure Coverage for Treatment to Intoxicated Drivers

Physicians are urged to contact the Governor in support of a measure (S.7845, Breslin/A.11116, Dinowitz) passed by the Legislature to require No-Fault carriers to cover the costs of providing emergency care to intoxicated drivers.  MSSNY strongly supports this legislation. The bill would at last rectify an anomaly in the law whereby under federal law physicians and hospitals are required to provide emergency care to all patients, but a separate state law permits insurers to deny coverage for care provided to intoxicated drivers. As a result, many physicians have experienced the situation where they are not paid for providing this often-life saving treatment. Perhaps most importantly this bill would eliminate the current disincentives to testing patients for alcohol and better assure that patients can obtain the counseling they need.  Please indicate your support for this legislation by asking the Governor to sign this measure into law.

The bill was delivered to the Governor for his consideration this past Monday, so by law he must take action by the end of next week. Physicians can send a letter to Governor Paterson by clicking here.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 9:30 am and is filed under NEWS FROM THE NYS LEGISLATURE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.