2006 Health Legislation

As usual, the General Assembly was quite active in the area of health law in 2006. There was some major new public health legislation, including new laws affecting private drinking water wells, food safety, and the on-site wastewater permitting program. A controversial 2005 law that would have required kindergarteners to receive comprehensive eye examinations was amended. An overhaul of North Carolina’s impaired driving laws contains several sections that significantly affect health care providers who interact with law enforcement officers investigating impaired driving cases. Several new laws affect the management of confidential information maintained by health care providers, including the impaired driving law changes, amendments to the Identity Theft Protection Act of 2005, new protection for records maintained by the public health lead program, and changes to North Carolina’s juvenile code (G.S. Chapter 7B). This chapter summarizes all of the above, as well as the 2006 appropriations act provisions affecting public health, new laws affecting health insurance, the regulation of various health care professions, and health care facilities. Other laws that may be of interest to public health agencies or health care providers are briefly noted.