Bill Text: HI HB1759 | 2016 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Medicaid; Health Insurance; Payment; Clean Claims
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2016-02-19 - Report adopted. referred to the committee(s) on FIN as amended in HD 2 with none voting aye with reservations; none voting no (0) and Representative(s) Nakashima, Thielen, Tokioka excused (3). [HB1759 Detail]
Download: Hawaii-2016-HB1759-Amended.html
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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES |
H.B. NO. |
1759 |
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TWENTY-EIGHTH LEGISLATURE, 2016 |
H.D. 1 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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A BILL FOR AN ACT
RELATING TO INSURANCE.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:
SECTION 1. Medicaid is a state program that provides health care to certain low-income individuals and families. The State sets the criteria for eligibility, determines the services that are available, and administers the program. As with all states, Hawaii's medicaid program is funded in large part by the federal government.
The legislature finds that medicaid operates in partnership with Hawaii's health care providers, as it does not directly employ health care practitioners but rather pays health care providers for services rendered to medicaid participants.
Prior to 1994, medicaid paid providers directly on a fee for-services basis. In 1994, Hawaii implemented the QUEST program to provide health care to many medicaid participants through a managed care approach. Under QUEST, the State contracts with health care insurance plans to pay each plan a capitated amount for each participant. The health plans in turn pay the providers that deliver care to medicaid participants.
QUEST Expanded Access was implemented to provide care on a managed care basis to the medicaid aged, blind, and disabled population. Quest Integrated has expanded managed care to the medicaid population that is non-aged, blind, and disabled. The legislature finds that since the implementation of both programs, health care providers have experienced many cases of delayed payments from health care plans contracting with the State. As a result of these delays, many providers have been subject to financial difficulties that impact their long-term ability to deliver quality care.
Under section 431:13-108, Hawaii Revised Statutes, health plans are required to pay providers on a timely basis when uncontested claims are submitted. Specifically, the law requires payments to be made within thirty days for uncontested claims submitted in writing, and within fifteen days for uncontested claims submitted electronically. Concurrently, the law contains an exemption for medicaid from requirements for clean claims. As a result, health plans contracted by the State under medicaid may delay action on clean claims while health care providers must endure the financial impacts of these delays.
The purpose of this Act is to clarify that payment timeframes and interest penalties in section 431:13-108, Hawaii Revised Statutes, apply to clean claims, and to repeal the exemption from the clean claims definition for health plans contracting with the State to provide services to medicaid enrollees in section 431:13-108, Hawaii Revised Statutes.
SECTION 2. Chapter 431:13-108, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended as follows:
1. By amending subsection (b) to read:
"(b) Unless shorter payment timeframes are otherwise specified in a contract, an entity shall reimburse a clean claim or a claim that is not contested or denied not more than thirty calendar days after receiving the claim filed in writing, or fifteen calendar days after receiving the claim filed electronically, as appropriate."
2. By amending subsection (g) to read:
"(g) Notwithstanding section 478-2 to the contrary, interest shall be allowed at a rate of fifteen per cent a year for money owed by an entity on payment of a claim exceeding the applicable time limitations under this section, as follows:
(1) For an uncontested or clean claim:
(A) Filed in writing, interest from the first calendar day after the thirty-day period in subsection (b); or
(B) Filed electronically, interest from the first calendar day after the fifteen-day period in subsection (b);
(2) For a contested claim filed in writing:
(A) For which notice was provided under subsection (c), interest from the first calendar day thirty days after the date the additional information is received; or
(B) For which notice was not provided within the time specified under subsection (c), interest from the first calendar day after the claim is received; or
(3) For a contested claim filed electronically:
(A) For which notice was provided under subsection (c), interest from the first calendar day fifteen days after the additional information is received; or
(B) For which notice was not provided within the time specified under subsection (c), interest from the first calendar day after the claim is received.
The commissioner may suspend the accrual of interest if the commissioner determines that the entity's failure to pay a claim within the applicable time limitations was the result of a major disaster or of an unanticipated major computer system failure."
3. By amending the definition of "clean claim" in subsection (l) to read:
""Clean claim" [means a claim
in which the information in the possession of an entity adequately indicates
that]:
(1) Means a claim in which the information in the possession of an entity adequately indicates that:
[(1)] (A) The claim is for a covered
health care service provided by an eligible health care provider to a covered
person under the contract;
[(2)] (B) The claim has no material
defect or impropriety;
[(3)] (C) There is no dispute
regarding the amount claimed; and
[(4)] (D) The payer has no reason to
believe that the claim was submitted fraudulently[.]; and
[The term does]
(2) Does not include:
[(1)] (A) Claims for payment of
expenses incurred during a period of time when premiums were delinquent;
[(2)] (B) Claims that are submitted
fraudulently or that are based upon material misrepresentations;
[(3)] (C) Claims for self-insured
employer groups; claims for services rendered to individuals associated with a
health care entity through a national participating provider network; or claims
for [medicaid,] medicare, medigap, or other federally financed [plan;]
plans, excluding medicaid; and
[(4)] (D) Claims that require a
coordination of benefits, subrogation, or preexisting condition investigations,
or that involve third-party liability."
SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.
SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2050.
Report Title:
Medicaid; Health Insurance; Payment; Clean Claims
Description:
Requires health insurers to promptly pay clean claims for services and repeals the exemption of Medicaid claims from the clean claims definition. (HB1759 HD1)
The summary description of legislation appearing on this page is for informational purposes only and is not legislation or evidence of legislative intent.*
