Relating to certain policies and procedures for health care specialty consultations in certain child abuse or neglect investigations and assessments.

Contracts

• DFPS Vendor Agreements: If your facility contracts with DFPS for forensic assessments, the Master Service Agreement (MSA) will likely require amendment to include the new "blind peer review" participation requirements and data sharing mandates.
• Physician Employment Agreements: Review contracts for Child Abuse Pediatricians (CAPs). Ensure productivity metrics account for mandatory recusals when the physician is the initial reporter.

Hiring/Training

• Intake Staff Training: Front-line staff must be trained on the "Reporter vs. Assessor" firewall. They must verify the forensic assessor is *not* the reporting physician.
• ROI/HIM Training: Health Information Management staff must be retrained to understand that a pending DFPS investigation is not grounds to deny or delay a parent's request for records or a second opinion.
• Staffing Redundancy: Smaller centers must ensure they have access to a secondary provider. If your sole specialist is the reporter, you must refer the forensic assessment elsewhere.

Reporting & Record-Keeping

• EHR Logic Update: You must configure your Electronic Health Record (EHR) to trigger a hard-stop warning if the user attempting to document a forensic assessment is listed as the "Reporter" of the case.
• Pre-Referral Discovery: Prepare for immediate, high-volume requests from DFPS for *complete* medical files (including raw DICOM imaging data), as DFPS must provide this to parents *before* a specialty consultation occurs.
• Peer Review Transparency: Physicians participating in blind peer reviews must document their findings knowing their anonymity is waived. The law requires disclosure of physician names and specific opinions to the family's legal counsel.

Fees & Costs

• Operational Costs: Budget for IT hours to update EHR conflict-checking logic.
• Fee Waivers: While not explicitly required, waiving record retrieval fees for these specific DFPS/Parent requests is recommended to avoid allegations of "obstruction" under the new statute.