Testimony in Support of HB23-1218: Patient’s Right to Know Act

3/22/23

This bill, put forward by Rep. Titone and Rep. Brown, would require healthcare facilities to inform patients of services that the facility refuses to provide to patients for nonmedical reasons, as part of the informed consent process.  Being denied services is personally harmful, wastes time, money, and resources for people who are in the vulnerable position of needing healthcare. It is especially important for LGBTQ+ people and people seeking reproductive, gender affirming, and end-of-life services.

Our Director of Education & Research, Michal Duffy (they/them), provided testimony in support of the Patient’s Right to Know Act. This bill passed out of its initial house committee hearing and has been sent to the Appropriations Committee.  We will continue to track the progress of this bill. 

Learn about the details of this bill on our 2023 Legislative Action webpage.

Testimony:

Chair Lontine, Vice Chair Ortiz, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to share my testimony in support of HB23-1218, the Patient’s Right to Know Act.

My name is Michal Duffy, I use they pronouns, and I am here today on behalf of Out Boulder County where I am the Director of Education & Research. 

Out Boulder County 

• brings together the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community, 

• provides services, support, and connection for LGBTQ individuals,

•  and advocates for LGBTQ issues in Boulder County and across Colorado. 

Our constituents reside in Boulder, Denver, Jefferson, Weld, Broomfield, Larimer, and Arapahoe counties and across the state, 

and hold an incredible array of diverse identities across race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, income, and family structure.

This bill is a commonsense strategy to improve the experiences of accessing health care for all Coloradans. 

Seeking out health care services can be some of the most vulnerable and scary moments of our lives. Navigating confusing health care systems, insurance coverage, and speaking the unnatural language of these systems is intimidating even for the most educated among us -and these challenges are exacerbated when someone is actively experiencing healthcare needs. 

The vulnerability and urgency of accessing services is heightened for reproductive, gender affirming, and end of life care. Needlessly making people who are experiencing difficult health situations go through the additional trauma, expense, and delays from being denied services is callous and harmful. 

HB23-1218, A Patient’s Right to Know, is a solution to this unnecessary pain, confusion, and added expense. Requiring health care facilities to proactively communicate what services they do not provide contributes to transparency, provides more clarity, reduces unnecessary expenses for patients, and prevents more harm. 

This bill will support patients’ dignity while seeking services necessary to their health and wellbeing.

Healthcare providers, and by extension health care facilities, should uphold the commitment to do no harm. This bill provides some accountability to realizing that essential ethos.

I encourage you to vote yes in support of HB23-1218.