BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                           Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair

                                          SB 485 (Hernandez)
          
          Hearing Date: 01/17/2012        Amended: 01/04/2012
          Consultant: Brendan McCarthy    Policy Vote: N/A
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          ____
          BILL SUMMARY: SB 485 extends the sunset of the Health Insurance 
          Portability and Accountability Act to 2014 and makes several 
          changes to the Act.
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          ____
                            Fiscal Impact (in thousands)

           Major Provisions         2012-13      2013-14       2014-15     Fund
           
          Continued operation of the        $1,200      $1,200    General
             Office of Health Information   
             Integrity

          Federal grants         ($4,500)   ($4,500)              Federal

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          ____

          STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the 
          Suspense File. 

          Under current law, the Office of Health Insurance Portability 
          and Accountability Act Implementation (the Office), is tasked 
          with overseeing all statewide activities to comply with the 
          federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The 
          law that establishes the Office sunsets on January 1, 2013.

          SB 485 extends the sunset of the existing law, renames the 
          Office as the Office of Health Information Integrity, deletes a 
          redundant code section, and changes the meeting schedule for an 
          existing advisory committee.

          Staff notes that several of the provisions of this bill, except 
          the sunset extension, were included in SB 946 (Steinberg, 2010) 
          which was subsequently amended to address a different subject.

          The Office has an annual budget of about $2.4 million from the 








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          General Fund. Extending the sunset by one year will impose costs 
          of that amount for one year. The other changes in the bill will 
          not have any fiscal impact.

          A portion of the Office's operating budget is used as matching 
          funds for a federal grant. By extending the operation of the 
          Office and allowing the Office to use part of its budget to 
          match federal funds, the bill will allow the state to receive 
          about $9 million in federal grant funds.