BILL NUMBER: AB 671 INTRODUCED
BILL TEXT
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Logue
FEBRUARY 21, 2013
An act to amend Section 1367 of the Health and Safety Code,
relating to health care service plans.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 671, as introduced, Logue. Health care service plans.
Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975,
provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service
plans by the Department of Managed Health Care and makes a willful
violation of the act a crime. Existing law requires a health care
service plan to meet specified requirements.
This bill would make a technical, nonsubstantive change to that
provision.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Section 1367 of the Health and Safety Code is amended
to read:
1367. A health care service plan and, if applicable, a
specialized health care service plan shall meet the following
requirements:
(a) Facilities located in this state including, but not limited
to, clinics, hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities to be utilized
by the plan shall be licensed by the State Department of Public
Health Services , where licensure is
required by law. Facilities not located in this state
California shall conform to all licensing and
other requirements of the jurisdiction in which they are located.
(b) Personnel employed by or under contract to the plan shall be
licensed or certified by their respective board or agency, where
licensure or certification is required by law.
(c) Equipment required to be licensed or registered by law shall
be so licensed or registered, and the operating personnel for that
equipment shall be licensed or certified as required by law.
(d) The plan shall furnish services in a manner providing
continuity of care and ready referral of patients to other providers
at times as may be appropriate consistent with good professional
practice.
(e) (1) All services shall be readily available at reasonable
times to each enrollee consistent with good professional practice. To
the extent feasible, the plan shall make all services readily
accessible to all enrollees consistent with Section 1367.03.
(2) To the extent that telemedicine services are appropriately
provided through telemedicine, as defined in subdivision (a) of
Section 2290.5 of the Business and Professions Code, these services
shall be considered in determining compliance with Section 1300.67.2
of Title 28 of the California Code of Regulations.
(3) The plan shall make all services accessible and appropriate
consistent with Section 1367.04.
(f) The plan shall employ and utilize allied health manpower for
the furnishing of services to the extent permitted by law and
consistent with good medical practice.
(g) The plan shall have the organizational and administrative
capacity to provide services to subscribers and enrollees. The plan
shall be able to demonstrate to the department that medical decisions
are rendered by qualified medical providers, unhindered by fiscal
and administrative management.
(h) (1) Contracts with subscribers and enrollees, including group
contracts, and contracts with providers, and other persons furnishing
services, equipment, or facilities to or in connection with the
plan, shall be fair, reasonable, and consistent with the objectives
of this chapter. All contracts with providers shall contain
provisions requiring a fast, fair, and cost-effective dispute
resolution mechanism under which providers may submit disputes to the
plan, and requiring the plan to inform its providers upon
contracting with the plan, or upon change to these provisions, of the
procedures for processing and resolving disputes, including the
location and telephone number where information regarding disputes
may be submitted.
(2) A health care service plan shall ensure that a dispute
resolution mechanism is accessible to noncontracting providers for
the purpose of resolving billing and claims disputes.
(3) On and after January 1, 2002, a health care service plan shall
annually submit a report to the department regarding its dispute
resolution mechanism. The report shall include information on the
number of providers who utilized the dispute resolution mechanism and
a summary of the disposition of those disputes.
(i) A health care service plan contract shall provide to
subscribers and enrollees all of the basic health care services
included in subdivision (b) of Section 1345, except that the director
may, for good cause, by rule or order exempt a plan contract or any
class of plan contracts from that requirement. The director shall by
rule define the scope of each basic health care service that health
care service plans are required to provide as a minimum for licensure
under this chapter. Nothing in this chapter shall prohibit a health
care service plan from charging subscribers or enrollees a copayment
or a deductible for a basic health care service or from setting
forth, by contract, limitations on maximum coverage of basic health
care services, provided that the copayments, deductibles, or
limitations are reported to, and held unobjectionable by, the
director and set forth to the subscriber or enrollee pursuant to the
disclosure provisions of Section 1363.
(j) A health care service plan shall not require registration
under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (21 U.S.C. Sec. 801 et
seq.) as a condition for participation by an optometrist certified to
use therapeutic pharmaceutical agents pursuant to Section 3041.3 of
the Business and Professions Code.
Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the director
to establish the rates charged subscribers and enrollees for
contractual health care services.
The director's enforcement of Article 3.1 (commencing with Section
1357) shall not be deemed to establish the rates charged subscribers
and enrollees for contractual health care services.
The obligation of the plan to comply with this section shall not
be waived when the plan delegates any services that it is required to
perform to its medical groups, independent practice associations, or
other contracting entities.