No. HB 1489
Filed under Insurance.
Medical Debt Protection and Comprehensive Health Care for Residents; Requires large health care facilities to develop written financial assistance policies; provides financial assistance eligibility criteria; provides billing & collections rules & prohibitions; prohibits information relating to medical debt from being included in consumer reports, communicated with & reported to consumer reporting agencies, & used for certain decisions; prohibits medical creditors & medical debt collectors from engaging in certain acts during health insurance appeals; limits interest on medical debt under certain circumstances; creates Florida Health Plan; provides eligibility for & coverage of plan; authorizes Florida Health Board to establish financial arrangements with other states & foreign countries; authorizes plan enrollees to choose certain health care providers to have primary care providers & access to care coordination; authorizes enrollees to see health care specialists without referral; requires board to secure repeals & waivers of certain provisions of federal law; provides that plan's responsibility for providing health care is secondary to existing federal programs; requires plan to collect health care costs from collateral sources; prohibits patient care from being affected by fee schedules & financial incentives; prohibits noninstitutional & institutional providers that accept payments from plan from billing patients; provides requirements for capital expenditures by noninstitutional & institutional providers which exceed specified amount; requires Secretary of Health Care Administration to designate health planning regions; provides considerations for such designations; provides requirements for regional planning boards; prohibits certain health insurance policies & contracts from being sold in this state on & after specified date.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDLarge hospitals, surgical centers, and high-revenue practices must adopt a written financial assistance policy, screen every patient for eligibility, and give free care to patients at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level.
Medical debt can no longer be reported to credit bureaus, interest is capped at 2 percent a year, and collectors must wait 180 days and give 30 days' notice before wage garnishment, liens, or lawsuits.
A new Florida Health Plan would cover every resident, regardless of immigration status, with no premiums, deductibles, copayments, or other cost-sharing, and free choice of any participating provider without a referral to see a specialist.
Once the Florida Health Plan is operating, insurers could no longer sell any policy that duplicates its coverage anywhere in Florida. None of this, including the debt protections, takes effect unless a companion bill also becomes law this session.
AICreates the Florida Health Plan, a new state-administered health system. Every resident of Florida is eligible for coverage regardless of immigration status, and nonresidents employed in the state, and retirees who later move away, can also qualify under separate terms.
AIThe plan may not charge an enrollee any deductible, copayment, coinsurance, or other cost-sharing amount for a covered benefit. Care that the plan covers is delivered without any charge to the patient at the point of service.
AIOnce the Florida Health Plan becomes operational, no health insurance policy, health maintenance contract, or other contract that covers the same services the plan covers may be sold anywhere in Florida.
AIA noninstitutional health care provider that accepts any payment from the plan for a covered service may not separately bill the patient for that same service; the same balance-billing ban applies to institutional providers.
AIA large health care facility must screen every patient for financial assistance and give free care to patients at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level, with sliding-scale discounts up to 600 percent of that level.
AIA patient with household income at or below 400 percent of the federal poverty level cannot be charged more than $2,300 total per year in medical bills across large health care facilities. Once the patient requests it and documents reaching that cap, anything billed above it must be provided as free care.
AINo one may communicate medical debt information to a consumer reporting agency, and a report already containing medical debt may not be used as a negative factor in a credit, employment, or housing decision.
AIA person enrolled in the plan may choose any qualified, licensed, participating provider and does not need a referral from a primary care provider before seeing a health care specialist.