26RS HB 408

House Bill 408

Actions

Last Action	01/15/26: to Committee on Committees (H)
Title	AN ACT relating to patient-directed care at the end of life.
Bill Documents	Introduced
Bill Request Number	231
Sponsors	A. Camuel, L. Burke
Summary of Original Version	Create new sections of KRS Chapter 311 to define terms; establish a qualified terminally ill patient's right to voluntarily request medication to self-administer to cause death; establish conditions required to make request; permit patient to rescind request at any time; permit an attending provider to provide medication; establish requirements for attending providers to inform patients and document request; require disposal of unused medications; require report by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services; establish provisions for contracts, insurance policies, and beneficiaries; prohibit applicability of provisions to ending a patient's life by lethal injection, mercy killing, or active euthanasia; establish that a health care provider is not required to provide medication to a qualified patient; permit health care providers to prohibit persons or entities from participating in a qualified patient's request during or on the premises of employment; prohibit reporting a health care provider to a licensing board for participating in a qualified patient's request; state that actions under this Act do not authorize lethal injection, mercy killing, or active euthanasia; establish that actions under this Act do not constitute suicide or homicide; create the offenses of forging or altering a request for end-of-life medications, concealing or destroying a rescession of a request for end-of-life medication, and coercing or exerting undue influence on a terminally ill patient to request or utilize end-of-life medications; create a form for a qualified patient to make a request; create a form for an interpreter for a qualified patient making a request; create a new section of Subtitle 12 of KRS Chapter 304 to establish provisions for insurance policies and beneficiaries of qualified patients; amend KRS 507.020 and 507.030 to create an affirmative defense to a charge of murder and manslaughter in the first degree; provide that the Act may be cited Rena's Law.
Index Headings of Original Version	Administrative Regulations And Proceedings - Cabinet for Health and Family Services, patient-directed care, end-of-life Crimes And Punishments - Affirmative defense to murder or manslaughter charge, patient-directed end-of-life care Crimes And Punishments - End-of-life medication requests, prohibited actions, Class B felony Deaths - Patient-directed care, end-of-life, self-administered medication Drugs And Medicines - Patient-directed care, end-of-life, self-administered medication Health And Medical Services - Patient-directed care, end-of-life, self-administered medication Insurance - Patient-directed care, end-of-life, provisions, limitations Insurance, Health - Patient-directed care, end-of-life, provisions, limitations Mental Health - Patient-directed care, end-of-life, consultation for assessment Nurses - Patient-directed care, end-of-life, self-administered medication, APRNs Pharmacists - Patient-directed care, end-of-life, self-administered medication Public Health - Patient-directed care, end-of-life, self-administered medication Reports Mandated - Cabinet for Health and Family Services, patient-directed care, end-of-life Short Titles And Popular Names - Rena's Law Health Care Professionals - Patient-directed care, end-of-life, self-administered medication