Health Committee Passes Ban on Balance Billing
[Posted 04/28/05]

Expressing a strong desire to “get the patient out of the middle” of billing disputes, the Assembly Health Committee last week passed a bill that would prohibit balance billing. Sponsored by the HMO trade association and opposed by CMA, this bill would make it illegal for hospital-based physicians to balance bill patients under any circumstance. It would require physicians “to seek reimbursement solely from the enrollee’s health care service plan or its contracting medical group.”

In passing the bill (AB 1321), the health committee encouraged the author (Assemblyman Leland Yee) to seek a compromise that both physicians and health plans will support. Wilma Chan, chair of the health committee, promised CMA that if no middle ground is found, she will recall the bill to her committee for more work.

CMA strongly opposes this bill, which gives health plans carte blanche to underpay physicians for services provided to their enrollees. All physicians are urged to contact their legislators and ask them to vote ‘no” if it moves to the Assembly floor.

For more information on this and other bills of interest to physicians, see CMA's Legislative Hot List.

Contact: Dave Ford, 916/444-5532 or dford@cmanet.org.