Florida Insurance Council - Covering Florida Since 1962
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel During committee on February 4, 2020, the House removed a health insurance provision from HB 1187 relating to discrimination by health insurers against organ donors. The provision removed via a strike all amendment specified that no insurer offering individual coverage can employ a preexisting condition exclusion with the effect…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 1205 deals with disclosures from health care providers to patients when the cash price for a covered medical service is cheaper than the patient’s cost sharing obligation under health insurance. The bill is one of a large number of House health care reform bills designed to further Speaker…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House moved their bill prohibiting balance billing by air ambulances out of its second committee on January 29, 2020. Under current law, air ambulances are still allowed to balance bill consumers. In contrast, balance billing by out-of-network health care providers for emergency or nonemergency services was abolished in…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 1556 and HB 1179 prohibit specified entities from denying, refusing to allocate, or lowering an individual’s priority for organ transplant medical services solely on the basis of an individual’s intellectual or developmental disability. The insurance part of the bills prohibits insurers, nonprofit health care service plans, and health…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House Health Market Reform Subcommittee approved a bill making tweaks to the health insurance shared savings program during its meeting on January 28, 2020. The bill was not amended. The shared savings program was created in 2019 as a voluntary program for health insurers and HMOs to provide…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The Senate moved their PBM regulation bill out of its first (of three) committee on January 28, 2020 when the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee approved SB 1338 with a technical amendment, but also with a commitment from the bill sponsor to look at adding other, more controversial, amendments…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The Senate Health Policy Committee approved the Agency for Health Care Administration’s agency bill, SB 1726, when it met on January 28, 2020. The Committee adopted three amendments, two of which were technical. The other did not pertain to the insurance part of the bill. The bill covers a…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The goal of SB 1516 is to increase the number of organs available for transplant in Florida and to ensure more organ transplants are successful. To help increase the number of organs available for transplant, the Senate Health Policy Committee adopted a strike all amendment (705054) to add language…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel House and Senate committees advanced bills prohibiting balance billing by air ambulances during meetings on January 21, 2020. Under current law, air ambulances are still allowed to balance bill consumers. In contrast, balance billing by out-of-network health care providers for emergency or nonemergency services was abolished in 2016. Senate…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Issues related to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and other drug issues appear to be a hot issue for the 2020 Legislative Session with nine bills filed on this topic, some of which conflict with each other and most of which are detrimental to health plans even though the alleged…