Leslie touts bill protecting intoxicated patients

Kirsten Searer

Friday, April 22, 2005 | 11:10 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, asked a Senate committee this morning to require insurance companies to cover injuries that people sustain when they are drunk.

A state law dating to the 1950s allows companies to deny payments on injury claims filed by people who were injured while drunk. Usually, Leslie said, doctors treat the patient but deliberately do not screen them for alcohol because they are afraid the bill won't be paid.

Meanwhile, an estimated 80 percent of patients in Southern Nevada emergency rooms are drunk, and doctors are missing an opportunity to screen people who might need substance abuse treatment, Leslie said.

Since Assembly Bill 63 would require companies to cover people injured while drunk, doctors could better screen their patients and, potentially, save health care costs down the road, she said.

Leslie did amend the bill so that insurance companies can deny coverage if someone is in the commission of a felony when they are injured.

The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee didn't vote on the bill, though Sen. Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, expressed support, saying the current situation is "basically a 'don't ask, don't tell' scenario."

Several representatives of substance abuse treatment groups said the bill would increase opportunities to help people with substance abuse problems, though Janice Pine, a lobbyist for St. Mary's Health Plans, said the company sees the bill as another mandate.

The company is opposed to mandates in any form, she said.

"We believe the responsibility for wrongdoing needs to be placed on the wrong-doer," she said.

Sen. Joe Heck, R-Henderson, a doctor who has worked in emergency rooms, said the best way to diagnose when someone needs longterm treatment is to have a social worker screen the patient. Results of those screenings are protected from insurance companies under federal law, he said.

But Leslie said other doctors have complained to her that hospital administrators don't want the social workers to do the screenings because they are afraid the insurance company would find out and deny payment for the patient.