Mississippi health insurers will not be required to implement a speedier prior-authorization process nor face fines for any inequalities in provider reimbursement rates after Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed legislation that would have created new regulations on the industry.
“Today, I vetoed two bills that had the potential to seriously increase the cost of healthcare in Mississippi,” the Republican governor tweeted late Wednesday afternoon. “One is a bad idea, and I can’t see myself supporting it. One is a good idea that just includes some correctable mistakes.”
Until Gov. Reeves vetoed it, Senate Bill 2622, known as the Mississippi Prior Authorization Reform Act, would have placed requirements on health-insurance companies to be more transparent about services that require prior authorizations and would have tightened the process for approvals. Health-insurance companies use the prior authorization process to inform providers whether they will cover services, such as drugs or procedures.
“This bill would force insurance companies to give an answer more quickly—great! It also had some unintended consequences,” Reeves wrote Wednesday. “The bill has a lot of technical components: like administrative hearings that are in an incorrect place, untenable costs for Medicaid, and other issues that cause me not to be comfortable signing but hopefully we can get a great bill done soon!”
The bill says it would require a health-insurance company to “maintain a complete list of services for which prior authorizations are required” and to make them “readily accessible and posted on its website”; “prohibit health insurance issuers from denying a claim for failure to obtain prior authorization if the prior authorization was not in effect on the date of services on the claim”; prohibit health insurance companies from revoking or limiting “a previously issued prior authorization while it remains valid”; require insurers to provide information on “how long the prior authorizations for chronic conditions shall be valid”; and mandate that an insurer’s failure to comply with deadlines would “result in any health care services subject to review to be automatically deemed authorized.”
The bill would also have required health insurance companies to set up an electronic portal for prior authorization