August 17, 2018
To the Honorable
Members of
The Illinois Senate,
100th General
Assembly:
Today,
I return Senate Bill 2419 with specific recommendations for change.
This
legislation updates the certification standards for surgical assistants to
become registered to practice in Illinois and adds additional certification requirements
for the renewal of this registration.
Maintaining
a safe and effective healthcare environment is of the utmost importance.
However, this legislation only serves to needlessly expand bureaucratic
requirements without any demonstrable improvements in patient safety.
The
Department of Financial and Professional Regulation is well-equipped to
regulate this profession in a way that protects the health and safety of
Illinois patients without needing to enforce membership in a private
association. There has been an average of less than 1 disciplinary action per
year against this profession since 2010, and surgical assistants already
operate under the direction supervision of licensed physicians. All this
legislation will accomplish is increasing the direct costs for professionals
seeking to renew their license, which will indirectly be passed on to consumers
in the form of even higher healthcare costs, while supporting a private
organization’s certification program that may not even relate to the practice
area of a given surgical assistant.
Specifically,
this legislation will create at least 80,000 hours of additional unnecessary
compliance work by members of this industry and over $1.2 million of indirect
costs over the next 10 years, on top of further restricting entry into the labor
market for new workers.
While
the certification requirements in law may make sense for the initial
registration of surgical assistants, the reality of the highly-regulated environments
in which they work makes statutorily required maintenance of this paper certification
redundant. Instead of perpetuating barriers to work like this, Illinois should
be making our economy and workforce more agile and responsive to the actual
needs of our workplaces.
Therefore,
pursuant to Section 9(e) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I
hereby return Senate Bill 2419, entitled “AN ACT concerning regulation”, with
the following specific recommendations for change:
By
deleting page 2, line 10 through page 3 line 23.
With
these changes, Senate Bill 2419 will have my approval. I respectfully request
your concurrence.
Sincerely,
Bruce Rauner
GOVERNOR