Illinois Legislature Making Progress in 2024 Spring Session

The Illinois General Assembly has reached the halfway point in the 2024 Spring Legislative Session. Senate bills have now been sent to the House of Representatives and House bills have been transferred to the Senate. Appropriations committees have been convening to begin shaping the Fiscal Year 2025 state budget. The scheduled adjournment date for the spring session is May 24.

Nearly 3,000 bills have been introduced by the two legislative chambers in the spring session, by with several hundred of the bills being approved in the chamber of origin and sent to the opposite body for consideration. ICS has been actively engaged in the process in the Capitol: reviewing all introduced bills and amendments, speaking with sponsors of bills that may have a direct impact on chiropractic physicians, relaying our positions on bills through talking with sponsors, committee chairmen, committee members, and filing witness slips for the public record.

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Here is a sampling of some of the bills being tracked by the ICS:

SB 2735 (Fine, D-Glenview) requires health insurance plans to offer all reasonably available methods of payment to the health care provider and cannot require providers to accept payment by single-use credit card. The bill was approved by the Senate and was sent to the House for consideration.

HB 3721 (Costa Howard-D-Lombard) would create the Naturopathic Medical Practice Act for the licensure of naturopathic doctors. Several stakeholder groups and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) had concerns about the scope of the bill, including allowing naturopathic doctors to perform minor surgeries and prescribe drugs. The bill has been sent back to the House Rules Committee and will likely not move in this session.

HB 4139 (Fritts, R-Dixon), regarding who may provide the determination of a disability under the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, expands those eligible to make the determination to advanced practice nurses, clinical psychologists, and physician assistants. However, it inadvertently redefined “physician” to exclude chiropractic physicians. The ICS is working to amend the bill in the Senate to ensure that DCs are still included.

HB 4477 (Schmidt, R-Millstadt) is an ICS initiative prohibiting discrimination by an insurer against any health care provider who is acting within the scope of his/her provider’s license. The bill is pending in a subcommittee of the House Insurance Committee and likely will not be considered this session.

HB 5355 (Yang Rohr, D-Naperville) creates the Nonopioid Alternatives for Pain Act. It requires the Illinois Department of Public Health to publish on its website an educational pamphlet regarding the use of nonopioid alternatives for the treatment of acute nonoperative or chronic pain that must conform with the CDC Clinical Practice Guidelines. The CDC specifically mentions the use of chiropractic treatments to eliminate pain without the use of opioids. The bill was approved by the House and was sent to the Senate for consideration.

HB 5395 (Moeller, D-Elgin) is Governor JB Pritzker’s initiative to create the Network Adequacy and Transparency Act to address the health insurance industry. In his State of the State Address earlier this year, the Governor said he wanted to “curb predatory insurance practices.” The bill addresses transparency with insurance policies, prior authorization provisions, utilization reviews, and step therapy. The bill was approved by the House and was sent to the Senate for consideration.