2016 Oklahoma Annual Book of Reports

2016 Oklahoma Nurses Association
Medical Advisory Committee
Medical Advisory Committee of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority Report
The primary goal of the Medical Advisory Committee (MAC) is to offer recommendations to the full Board of
the Oklahoma Health Care Authority on health care related issues, which in turn makes recommendations to
the Oklahoma Legislature. The MAC has meetings every other month, usually on Wednesday afternoon and
is composed of representatives from almost all the areas of health care, including but not limited to nursing,
physical therapy, advanced practice providers, respiratory therapy, radiology, mental health, and medicine.
The meetings start by allowing the public to speak to any issue they feel is important for the committee to
hear about. They are allowed two minutes each to talk to their topic.
At the first meeting I attended, over 60 individuals talked with the main topic being the proposed reductions
in Mental Health spending, particularly spending for private contract therapist. According to the proposed
reduction in spending, these independent therapists were to be completely eliminated, although most of the
money would remain for state institutional therapists. Most of the speakers were parents who had children in
therapy who would lose their therapists. They were pretty irate!
The next part of the meeting reviewed the proposed changes in the laws and regulations that the Health
Care Authority deals with. These can range in number from a few to several dozen. The MAC votes to either
approve the changes or not. Generally these changes are in the wording and language for the myriad of
legislative regulations that govern the Health Care Authority and are presented by the MAC staff.
This year was particularly busy because of the budget shortfall. We saw some of the changes two and three
times as the Legislature kept changing how they were going to allocate what little money they had. We also
discussed at length the proposal by Nico Gomez, along with the tobacco tax increase, and sent that on
approved to the OHCA. Unfortunately the Legislature killed it, the only piece of legislation this year that
was designed to increase revenue. They also took away most of the money for mental health including the
contract therapists.
Respectfully Submitted,
Joseph T. Catalano, PhD, RN
89