Lieu Reintroduces Consumer Protection Bill
SACRAMENTO – In response to widespread reports showing that medical patients are not always informed of expenses, on Feb. 14, Sen. Ted W. Lieu reintroduced legislation that would require more disclosure about potential treatment costs.
Senate Bill 266 measure seeks greater transparency for medical billing by prohibiting any provider organization, group or hospital from advertising or holding themselves as being within a patient’s insurance network unless all the providers in the provider organization, group or hospital are indeed in the patient’s insurance network, or the provider organization specifically informs the patients that not all of their doctors are in the network.
The problem of unexpected billing occurs mostly when patients, without their knowledge, receive medical care from a medical-insurance provider that is ‘out of network,’ or not contracted with that patient’s insurance company.