Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 2005 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to amend the confidentiality provisions of the mental health, mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism law by changing "insurer" to "provider" to indicate that the provider may inform the patient of a reimbursement claim.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Health, the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, the Queen's Medical Center, the Hawaii Medical Service Association, the Hawaii Psychiatric Medical Association, and Kaiser Permanente.

Your Committee finds that this measure corrects flawed language in Act 204, Session Law of Hawaii 2003, that was inserted during conference.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2005 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.