REFERENCE TITLE: DOI; report; surprise billing

State of Arizona Senate Fifty-third Legislature First Regular Session 2017

SB 1321

Introduced by Senators Bowie: Lesko

 

AN ACT

 

Requiring a report from the department of insurance on surprise billing.

 

 

(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)

 

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:

Section 1.  Department of insurance; surprise billing; report; definition

A.  On or before January 1, 2018, the director of the department of insurance shall produce a report on surprise billing in this state.  The report shall include:

1.  A review and analysis of applicable federal and state laws regarding surprise billing.

2.  How this state's laws or procedures compare to other state's surprise billing laws and procedures.

3.  The number and type of surprise billing complaints filed with the department of insurance in the past five years.

4.  Current federal and state resources available to consumers subject to surprise billing.

5.  Recommendations to reduce the incidents of surprise billing.

B.  The report shall be submitted to the governor, the president of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives and a copy of this report shall be provided to the secretary of state.

C.  For the purposes of this section, "surprise billing" includes billing that results when services are performed by an out‑of‑network health care provider at a hospital in the patient's insurer's network or when an in‑network health care provider refers an insured to an out‑of‑network health care provider.