{"id":27596,"date":"2020-02-21T08:19:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T14:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=27596"},"modified":"2020-02-21T08:19:12","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T14:19:12","slug":"proposal-to-curb-unexpected-medical-bills-advanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=27596","title":{"rendered":"Proposal to curb unexpected medical bills advanced"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers advanced a bill from general file Feb. 20 that would reduce \u201csurprise billing\u201d for emergency medical care.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Adam Morfeld<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB997, as introduced by Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln, would create the Out-of-Network Emergency Medical Care Act, which would allow for resolution of unexpected medical bills due to an emergency visit to a health care facility or provider that was not in a patient\u2019s health insurance network.<\/p>\n

The bill defines an emergency as the sudden onset of a medical condition that would place the person in serious jeopardy if not treated immediately, and limits a patient\u2019s expenses to what would have been charged if the patient had been treated at an in-network facility.<\/p>\n

Morfeld said the bill would help reduce the number of bankruptcies due to unexpectedly large medical bills by removing the insured from any ensuing dispute between an insurance company and a health care provider.<\/p>\n

He asked senators to imagine being rushed to the emergency room of an in-network hospital, and then months later receiving a bill for thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the realization hits you that the ER doctor and the hospital [were] in network but maybe one of those other providers wasn\u2019t in network and you didn\u2019t know that,\u201d Morfeld said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte supported the bill, calling it \u201cbadly needed.\u201d He described a constituent who received emergency surgery at a hospital that was not part of the person\u2019s health insurance network.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re facing bankruptcy now,\u201d Groene said. \u201cThey had insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee amendment would provide a framework for how to settle unpaid claims. A claim would be deemed reasonable if it is the higher of the contracted rate under an existing in-network contractual relationship between the insurer and the out-of-network health care provider for the same or similar services, or 175 percent of the payment rate for Medicare services for the same or similar services in a geographic area.<\/p>\n

If a claim is deemed unreasonable the insurer and the provider would engage in mediation in accordance with the Uniform Mediation Act.<\/p>\n

Senators adopted the amendment 37-0 and advanced LB997 to select file on a vote of 43-0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers advanced a bill from general file Feb. 20 that would reduce \u201csurprise billing\u201d for emergency medical care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[148],"class_list":["post-27596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking-commerce-and-insurance","tag-sen-adam-morfeld"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/LB997Morfeld2-20-20a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27597,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27596\/revisions\/27597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}