Health Care Practitioner Transparency Act
HB247 creates the Health Care Practitioner Transparency Act, a consumer-disclosure bill aimed at making it easier for patients to identify who is treating them and what credentials that person holds. It requires health care practitioner advertisements to include the practitioner’s name and license type, and it prohibits advertisements from using deceptive or misleading terms or from using medical titles unless the practitioner is a physician. The bill also requires certain practices and facilities to post visible notices in reception areas explaining the types of practitioners on site and patients’ right to ask about licensure.
The bill further requires practitioners to wear an identifier during patient encounters that shows their name, license type, and educational degree, with exceptions for sterile settings, some mental health settings, and situations where safety or health risks would be created. It adds specific verbal-identification rules for advanced practice registered nurses and physician assistants, especially when they use the title “doctor” in clinical settings, and limits the bill’s application for dentists, chiropractic physicians, and optometrists to certain facility types. The act also states that it does not create a private right of action and does not prevent practitioners from using titles expressly authorized by their licensing statutes.
HB247 would amend state law by establishing new advertising, disclosure, and identification requirements for a broad range of licensed health care practitioners, including physicians, nurses, physician assistants, dentists, chiropractors, optometrists, therapists, and others. It would affect hospitals, outpatient practices, nursing homes, assisted living communities, personal care homes, and other health care facilities by requiring posted notices and visible practitioner identifiers, while carving out several exceptions for sterile environments, mental health care, non-patient-care settings, and existing badge systems. The bill is designed to regulate professional representation in health care marketing and patient interactions, and it would likely require compliance updates for facilities, employers, and practitioners across multiple licensing boards.
Based on the bill text, the measure appears to be framed as a patient-transparency and anti-misrepresentation bill rather than a punitive one, with a clear consumer-protection rationale. No committee transcripts or votes were provided, so there is no recorded legislative debate or vote history to indicate broader support or opposition. The structure of the bill suggests an intent to balance disclosure requirements with operational exceptions, which may have been designed to make the proposal more acceptable to affected professions and facilities.
The main points of contention likely center on the bill’s restrictions on the use of medical titles, especially for non-physician practitioners who may hold doctorates or use titles such as “doctor” in clinical settings. Advanced practice registered nurses and physician assistants are singled out for additional verbal-identification requirements, which could be viewed as burdensome or as implying a hierarchy among licensed professionals. Another likely issue is the scope of the identifier and posting requirements for practices and facilities, though the bill includes exceptions for sterile, mental health, and safety-sensitive settings, as well as a limited application for dentists, chiropractic physicians, and optometrists. Because no hearing record is available, these concerns are inferred from the bill’s structure rather than from documented testimony.