As federal lawmakers work on a surprise-billing fix, states have been at work as well.
At least nine states had enacted and implemented laws with comprehensive surprise-billing approaches for state-regulated health plans as of June, according to according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, which updated figures from the Commonwealth Fund, a liberal think tank.
California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Oregon all have surprise-billing laws in place.
New Mexico, Washington, Colorado and Texas have enacted surprise-billing laws that had not taken effect as of June, according to the study.
Kaiser Family Foundation said comprehensive approaches generally do not hold patients responsible for unexpected out-of-network bills and include a process to resolve the payment amount for such bills.
Some states have limited surprise-billing approaches for state-regulated health plans. For example, they ban surprise medical bills for emergency care, but their laws don't apply to bills from out-of-network providers providing care in in-network hospitals, according to the study.
States with limited approaches are Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Vermont, Delaware and Maine.
Read more about the study here.
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