Legislation For Direct Primary Care Passed By Oklahoma Senate; Co-Sponsored in Oklahoma House

Legislation passed by the Oklahoma Senate on March 2, 2015 was sent to the Oklahoma House this week. The bill received unanimous approval, with 44 Senators supporting the measure and none opposing. Senate Bill (SB) 560 is intended to protect patients’ and physicians’ rights to enter into direct-pay relationships, including direct primary care membership agreements. This legislation allows employers to offer new, innovative health benefits to workers of all incomes that ensures employee access to a personal physician. When signed into law, this bill will provide for a state Health Care Empowerment Act to ensure that such benefits are not forfeited when entering into direct-pay relationships with physicians and to ensure that direct primary care membership agreements are not treated as insurance products by state regulators.

SB 560 was introduced by Sen. Rob Standridge of Norman and is co-sponsored in the Oklahoma House by Rep. David Derby of Owasso. This bill ensures that “Oklahoma citizens maintain control over their own access to quality health care at lower costs,” said Sen. Rob Standridge.

“Widespread support is expected for this bill in the Oklahoma legislature, because it emphasizes individual responsibility for health care choices and payments, while it restores the patient-doctor relationship,” said Rep. David Derby.

SB 560 is supported by the Direct Primary Care Coalition (www.dpcare.org), an organization of physicians across the U.S. promoting direct primary care as an innovative alternative payment model that protects patient choice and promotes restoration of the doctor-patient relationship. For more information, contact Jay Keese, principal of Capitol Advocates in Washington, D.C. at +1 (202) 624-1450, or Rob Bartlett, Jr., executive director of Direct Care Partners, LLC in Oklahoma City at +1 (713) 962-8033.