SB 1135: Health care coverage: notice of timely access to care.

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 also provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law requires each department to develop and adopt regulations to ensure that enrollees have access to needed health care services in a timely manner.

Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid program provisions. Existing law requires each prepaid health plan to establish a grievance procedure under which enrollees may submit their grievances.

This bill would require a health care service plan contract or a health insurance policy that provides benefits through contracts with providers for alternative rates that is issued, renewed, or amended on or after July 1, 2017, to provide information to enrollees and insureds regarding the standards for timely access to health care services and other specified health care access information, including information related to receipt of interpreter services in a timely manner, no less than annually, and would make these provisions applicable to Medi-Cal managed care plans. The bill would also require a health care service plan or a health insurer that contracts with providers for alternative rates of payment to provide a contracting health care provider with specified information relating to the provision of referrals or health care services in a timely manner.

Because a willful violation of the bills provisions by a health care service plan would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.