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BATON ROUGE – Sen. Heather Cloud’s legislation assuring continuance of care for cancer patients and others who receive infusion drugs has become state law.

    Gov. John Bel Edwards signed Senate Bill 191 into law June 1, completing Cloud’s personal effort to block insurance companies from imposing requirements that disrupt doctor-ordered care.

“I authored this legislation to protect patient choice and safety,” said Cloud, R-Turkey Creek. “As a cancer survivor, I know how important it is to ensure patients maintain their choice in deciding who is on their healthcare team and to ensure the highest safety standards.

“My legislation prevents insurance companies from forcing patients to choose lower quality sites of care for their infusions and ends the disturbing trend of forcing doctors to mail-order physician administered drugs,” she said. “We should never put profits over patients.”

Testifying in committee, Cloud said patients have enough turmoil in their lives and insurance companies should not complicate matters by requiring them to go to infusion centers not associated with their doctors and forcing them to use “dangerous mail-order drugs.”

“This law is the first of its kind to pass any state legislature,” she said. “I won’t stop fighting for Louisiana families.”