On June 30th, the Virtual Credit Card legislation, A-4913 (Conaway-D), which requires health insurance carriers to reimburse health care providers using check or electronic funds transfer, passed by a vote of 76-0.

The legislation provides that any network agreement between a carrier, or the carrier’s contracted vendor, and a health care provider for the provision of health or dental care services is prohibited from mandating only one form of payment to the health care provider. 

A carrier, or the carrier’s vendor, is also prohibited from restricting the method of payment to an out-of-network health care provider providing out-of-network covered services to only one form of payment.

The legislation also requires a carrier, or the carrier’s contracted vendor, to provide certain information to a health care provider, prior to initiating its first payment to the health care provider, where one of the available payment methods includes a fee and before changing the available payment methods.  

The bill prohibits a carrier from using a health care provider’s preferred method of payment as a factor when deciding whether to provide credentials to a health care provider.

The legislation has been referred to the Senate Commerce Committee, along with its senate counterpart, S-3133 (Johnson-D), where we will work to have the legislation heard when the legislature comes back in November.