Tag Archive for: New Hampshire

Consumer out-of-pocket spending on health care costs, including “surprise” medical bills – often incurred for costly, out-of-network care — is on the rise and state lawmakers are responding with legislation to protect consumers.

Surprise bills happen when consumers receive unexpected charges for medical care that they assumed would be comprehensively covered by their insurance plans. This often occurs when consumers unknowingly receive services from providers or facilities that are not covered within their insurance network, such as a specialist who contracts to work in a hospital, but does not participate in that hospital’s network.

Surprise bills can leave consumers on the hook for up to thousands of dollars in unexpected medical costs. This issue is pervasive throughout the health care system and affects consumers regardless of whether they are covered through individual insurance markets, such as an Affordable Care Act marketplace, or their employer. (For background on surprise billing, read NASHP’s report Answering the Thousand-Dollar Debt Question.)
Generally, state laws that address surprise billing fall into four categories:

• Laws that cap or limit charges for services that are delivered out-of-network, especially for emergency care;
• Laws designed to improve cost transparency in service costs and/or provider networks;
• Laws that set up an arbitration process to resolve surprise bills that focus on achieving a resolution between providers and insurers without burdening consumers); and
• State investments in committees to study the impact of surprise billing on state consumers.

Several states took action during the 2018 legislative session to address surprise billing, ranging from New Jersey, whose new law captures most of the above strategies, to California, New Hampshire, and New York, which passed laws to restrict “balance billing” (when providers charge patients for the difference between for what they charge and the insurer’s allowed amount.)

Below is a summary of new state laws designed to protect consumers from surprise bills.

• California AB 2593: California took aggressive action in 2017 to curb surprise billing in the state and its newest law adds to those protections by prohibiting air ambulance providers from charging consumers more than in-network costs, even if the consumer receives services from an out-of-network air ambulance provider. (It is currently awaiting governor’s signature)
• Missouri SB 982: The law requires insurers to pay providers for all emergency services “necessary to screen and stabilize an enrollee” and any additional services authorized by the insurer. Consumers cannot be held liable for cost-sharing for these services, beyond what is allowed under their insurance plans, even if the provider is out-of-network. The law also outlines a specific process for arbitration between insurers and providers to settle costs owed in cases where out-of-network care is provided to consumers.
• New Hampshire HB 1809: This law prohibits specific providers (those performing anesthesiology, radiology, emergency medicine, or pathology services) from balance billing a consumer for services in cases where the provider is out of the consumer’s network but delivers services at a hospital or ambulatory surgical center that is in the consumer’s network. New Hampshire also passed a law to establish a committee to study the balance billing practices of ambulance providers in the state. A report on the committee’s findings is due Nov. 1, 2018.
• New Jersey Chapter 32: This is of the most comprehensive surprise billing laws drafted to date. It requires:
  • Health care facilities to provide clear and public information regarding the insurance plans it contracts with, the network status of providers who provide services in that facility, and the costs of services in that facility;
  • Providers to share information about the insurance plans they participate in and the health care facilities they are affiliated with;
  • Insurers to update and maintain accurate information about their provider networks; and
  • Insurers to provide consumers with clear information regarding out-of-network health care benefits.

The law also prohibits out-of-network balance billing in the case of emergency services and sets up a process of arbitration for insurers and providers to resolve billing disputes. Notably, the law includes provisions that attempt to guarantee similar protections for consumers covered by self-insured plans, over which the state has limited authority.

• New York Chapter 57: The state’s Health and Mental Hygiene Budget includes a provision to protect survivors of sexual assault from being balance billed by a hospital, a sexual assault examiner, or a licensed health care provider.
• Oregon Chapter 43: By July 2020, Oregon’s Department of Consumer and Business Services will provide a report to the state legislature on all consumer complaints received by the state related to out-of-network providers working at in-network facilities.

Other states have actively considered bills to outlaw surprise bills and additional legislation is expected during the 2019 legislative sessions. The National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) will continue to monitor these bills and other efforts to address surprise billing.
On the federal level, in mid-September a group of nonpartisan US senators unveiled a draft bill that also tackles surprise billing. It adds a cap on out-of-network billing rates, prohibits surprise billing in emergency situations, and requires patients to receive notice before they receive out-of-network medical care.