Improving Access to Maternity Care Act 2015-03-03 Introduced in Senate Improving Access to Maternity Care Act

This bill amends the Public Health Service Act to require the Health Resources and Services Administration to designate maternity care health professional shortage areas and review these designations at least annually.

The Department of Health and Human Services must collect and publish data on health professional shortage areas so availability of maternal health professionals can be compared by professional category and geographic region.

A maternity care health professional shortage area is: (1) an area determined to have a shortage of providers of full scope maternity care health services or of hospital or birth center labor and delivery units, or (2) a population group determined to have a shortage of such providers or facilities.

Full scope maternity care health services include care during labor, birthing, prenatal care, and postpartum care.]]> text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress This file contains bill summaries for federal legislation. A bill summary describes the most significant provisions of a piece of legislation and details the effects the legislative text may have on current law and federal programs. Bill summaries are authored by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress. As stated in Public Law 91-510 (2 USC 166 (d)(6)), one of the duties of CRS is "to prepare summaries and digests of bills and resolutions of a public general nature introduced in the Senate or House of Representatives". For more information, refer to the User Guide that accompanies this file.