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Direction sought in developing rules for 'any willing provider' law Wednesday, Sep 6, 2006 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - The state insurance commissioner sought legislative direction Tuesday in determining how far the Arkansas Insurance Department can go in developing new rules and regulations for the state's so-called "any willing provider" law. The Senate and House Interim Committees on Public Health, Welfare and Labor voted to create a subcommittee to meet with Insurance Commissioner Julie Bowman to discuss the issue further. "This law gives the Insurance Department and the commission a lot of authority and a lot of power," Bowman told the committees Tuesday. "I don't want to go so far, or to move so quickly that it's not the right thing, it's not what the Legislature intended when AWP was passed. We don't want to go overboard." Sen. Steve Faris, D-Malvern, a supporter of the law, suggested that a subcommittee be formed to "gather information and to determine which way we and the insurance department will go." The Patient Protection Act of 1995 was designed to prevent insurers from excluding from their health coverage plans any health provider willing to accept its payment terms. Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield challenged the law in court and a judge ordered an injunction to halt implementation. In 2004, U.S. District Judge James Moody agreed to lift the injunction pending the outcome of an appeal by Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the state's biggest health insurance carrier, to the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 8th Circuit ruled in June that the law applies to all insurance plans except for self-funded ERISA plans used by some of the state's larger employers. Tuesday, Bowman said that Act 490 of 2005 assigned the state Insurance Department to regulate the law. She said other states have passed similar legislation, but none gave their Insurance Department as much authority in implementing the law as Arkansas. Bowman said she decided to ask lawmakers for guidance after a recent three-hour hearing was held to discuss a new rule which would allow sleep apnea clinics and free standing Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) clinics to be included on the list of health care providers under the law. Currently, 31 health care providers are on the list. Quality standards were among other issues discussed during the hearing, Bowman said. "That brought about the question, should the Insurance Department be in the quality standards business," she said. "How far does the Insurance Department go? Should we be in a business that historically we have not been in?" During Tuesday's meeting, David Wroten, executive vice president of the Arkansas Medical Society, and Austin Gaines, executive director of Managed Care for Sisters of Mercy Hospitals in Arkansas, both spoke in support of the any willing provider law. Former state Rep. Scott Ferguson of West Memphis, who sponsored the bill that created the law in 1995, spoke of the Legislature's intent in passing the law. "It was definitely in the best interest of the patient" and was designed to increase competition, Ferguson said. |
