Section 135.105D. Blood lead testing — provider education — payor of last resort.

  1.  For purposes of this section:

  a.  “Blood lead testing” means taking a capillary or venous sample of blood and sending it to a laboratory to determine the level of lead in the blood.

  b.  “Capillary” means a blood sample taken from the finger or heel for lead analysis.

  c.  “Health care provider” means a physician who is licensed under chapter 148, or a person who is licensed as a physician assistant under chapter 148C or as an advanced registered nurse practitioner.

  d.  “Venous” means a blood sample taken from a vein in the arm for lead analysis.

  2.  a.  A parent or guardian of a child under the age of two is strongly encouraged to have the child tested for elevated blood lead levels by the age of two. Except as provided in paragraph “b” and subsection 4, a parent or guardian shall provide evidence to the school district elementary attendance center or the accredited nonpublic elementary school in which the parent’s or guardian’s child is enrolled that the child was tested for elevated blood lead levels by the age of six according to recommendations provided by the department.

  b.  The board of directors of each school district and the authorities in charge of each nonpublic school shall, in collaboration with the department, do the following:

  (1)  Ensure that the parent or guardian of a student enrolled in the school has complied with the requirements of paragraph “a”.

  (2)  Provide, if the parent or guardian cannot provide evidence that the child received a blood lead test in accordance with paragraph “a”, the parent or guardian with community blood lead testing program information, including contact information for the department.

  c.  Notwithstanding any other provision to the contrary, nothing in this section shall subject a parent, guardian, or legal custodian of a child of compulsory attendance age to any penalties under chapter 299.

  3.  The board of directors of each school district and the authorities in charge of each nonpublic school shall furnish the department, in the format specified by the department, within sixty days after the start of the school calendar, a list of the children enrolled in kindergarten. The department shall notify the school districts and nonpublic schools of the children who have not met the blood lead testing requirements set forth in this section and shall work with the school districts, nonpublic schools, and the local childhood lead poisoning prevention programs to assure that these children are tested as required by this section.

  4.  The department may waive the requirements of subsection 2 if the department determines that a child is of very low risk for elevated blood lead levels, or if the child’s parent or legal guardian submits an affidavit, signed by the parent or legal guardian, stating that the blood lead testing conflicts with a genuine and sincere religious belief.

  5.  The department shall provide rules adopted pursuant to section 135.102, subsection 7, to local school boards and the authorities in charge of nonpublic schools.

  6.  The department shall work with health care provider associations to educate health care providers regarding requirements for testing children who are enrolled in certain federally funded programs and regarding department recommendations for testing other children for lead poisoning.

  7.  The department shall implement blood lead testing for children under six years of age who are not eligible for the testing services to be paid by a third-party source. The department shall contract with one or more public health laboratories to provide blood lead analysis for such children. The department shall establish by rule the procedures for health care providers to submit samples to the contracted public health laboratories for analysis. The department shall also establish by rule a method to reimburse health care providers for drawing blood samples from such children and the dollar amount that the department will reimburse health care providers for the service. The department shall also establish by rule a method to reimburse health care providers for analyzing blood lead samples using a portable blood lead testing instrument and the dollar amount that the department will reimburse health care providers for the service. Payment for blood lead analysis and drawing blood samples shall be limited to the amount appropriated for the program in a fiscal year.

2006 Acts, ch 1184, §79

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2007 Acts, ch 79, §2, 3

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2007 Acts, ch 215, §88

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2008 Acts, ch 1020, §4 – 6

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2008 Acts, ch 1088, §87

Nurse licensure, see chapter 152