Tennessee gender clinics may soon be required to offer detransition procedures for transgender people.
The State House passed House Bill (HB) 0754 this week, which mandates gender clinics that accept state funds to offer detransition procedures to patients.
State representatives passed HB 0754 by a vote of 70 to 21, with two abstaining. The bill proposal now heads to the State Senate for further deliberation.
The bill proposal only regulates clinics that prescribe or perform gender transition procedures and treatments. HB 0754 does not apply to clinics that refer patients.
HB 0754 would also prevent local governments from banning therapy for minors that addresses gender identity issues. Local governments are also prohibited from taking away a parent’s option to seek out gender identity-related therapy.
Gender clinics would be required to report statistical information about gender transition procedures they perform to the Tennessee Department of Health, HB 0754 says.
The data in the reporting information includes treatment date, patient’s age and sex, drug details, surgical procedures, patient location, healthcare provider information, and patient’s mental health or neurological diagnoses.
The bill proposal states the information must be sent to the state department of health no later than 15 days “after the end of the calendar month during which the gender transition procedure was prescribed.”
When these reports are given to lawmakers, HB 0754 requires them to be aggregated so that individual clinics cannot be identified. Also, the reports that would be made public need to restrict the identities of these clinics.
If HB 0754 became law, the first report would be due December 31.
If healthcare providers do not comply with HB 0754, they may face a license suspension, and the gender clinics where they work may be fined up to $150,000.
The bill proposal allows the state attorney general to investigate and to issue subpoenas to enforce compliance.
Within 90 days of the bill proposal becoming law, Tennessee would need to submit a waiver to the federal government that includes detransition procedures for Essential Health Benefits coverage, which are items Affordable Care Act health insurance plans must cover.
If the waiver is approved, government marketplace healthcare plans will need to include coverage for detransition procedures.
Healthcare plans not included on the government marketplace will need to comply with the new law immediately, HB 0754 says.
The bill proposal requires insurance companies to report the number of detransition claims they receive, along with information about the patient’s age, sex, location, and detransition timeline.
These reports will be monthly with no identifiable data, HB 0754 says.
At the bill’s hearing on Thursday, State Representative Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby), HB 0754’s sponsor, said since 2014, gender transition procedures have “exploded and taken off.” He added that many people have experienced “buyer’s remorse” after receiving these procedures.
Faison said insurance companies have paid for people to undergo gender transition procedures, but did not offer coverage for people seeking to detransition.
“This bill simply says if you are an insurance provider that sells insurance to people for gender affirming care and transgender surgery, that [it] also [has] to include detransitioners,” he said.
Faison said this bill does not share any personal data and does not break the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, which protects patient’s sentive health information.
Faison said people on TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, would have access to detransition procedures through the bill proposal.
As a state government, he said it is important for Tennessee to research and gather data that gives the state government the “ability to study trends, outcomes and effectiveness of treatment without knowing who the patient is.”
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at zschmidt1717@gmail.com.
