Panel backs health insurance rule

• By SARAH CHACKO
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jun 10, 2009 - Page: 8A

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Legislation that would require health insurance companies to post lists of their provider network online passed a House committee Tuesday.

The House Insurance Committee also advanced a measure that would change how the state-run property insurance company of last resort sets its rates.

Senate Bill 282, sponsored by Sen. Troy Hebert, D-Jeanerette, would require health insurance companies to report the facilities and health-care workers they contract with on their Web sites.

Hebert said he hopes the disclosure will inform patients who receive care and are billed by health-care workers, such as anesthesiologists or radiologists, who are not covered by their insurance provider.

The information may not completely solve the problem, Hebert said. But hopefully residents will see that one hospital has more of their network doctors than another, and choose accordingly, he said.

SB282, which was replaced in its entirety through amendment, now also applies to the Office of Group Benefits.

Committee Chairman Chuck Kleckley, R-Lake Charles, said he and Hebert, who is chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee, are looking at other insurance coverage issues for potential legislation in the future.

Hebert noted that Senate Bill 170, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Sharon Weston Broome, D-Baton Rouge, would have addressed another problem of coverage.

SB170 would have given patients the option to receive care only from health-care providers covered by their insurance, or in-network. If the option were not offered and accepted by the patient, out-of-network providers would be reimbursed by the insurance company at the in-network rate, according to the bill.

Broome withdrew her bill on the Senate floor Monday.

The committee also advanced Hebert’s Senate Bill 130, which would change how the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. sets it rates.

Citizens rates are set 10 percent higher than the highest property insurance company in an area.

Currently, Citizens’ rate is determined by surveying the 10 companies with the highest premiums in a parish.