Balance billing measure clears 2nd Senate panel

A Senate panel on Tuesday OK’d a measure that would ban the practice of “balance billing,” when insurance companies often unexpectedly slam a customer with a high bill for using an out-of-network health care provider.

The measure (SB 1442), carried by GOP state Sen. Rene Garcia of Hialeah, now moves from the Banking and Insurance Committee to Appropriations. The vote was unanimous: 11-0.

Garcia’s aim is to get patients out from between the provider and the payer, meaning health insurance companies. A strike-all amendment also approved Tuesday expands its effect to hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, specialty hospitals, and urgent care centers.

The proposal is backed by Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, who wants to “hold consumers harmless in emergency situations” by allowing them to “pay no more than what you would pay if the provider had been in your insurance network,” he has said. 

After some opposition, several medical and insurance interests now support the bill, including HCA Healthcare, the country’s largest operator of for-profit health care facilities, and the Florida Association of Health Plans.

That caught the attention of Senate President-designate Joe Negron, a Stuart Republican, who bluntly asked Garcia, “What’s in it for them?”

“I don’t care so much what’s in it for them,” Garcia said. “I just want to take the consumer out of dispute resolutions when it comes to payments.”

A House companion (HB 221) is scheduled to be considered Wednesday by the Health & Human Services Committee, its last committee of reference.

Jim Rosica ([email protected]) covers the Florida Legislature, state agencies and courts from Tallahassee.