{"id":108228,"date":"2022-05-05T07:59:05","date_gmt":"2022-05-05T14:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/?p=108228"},"modified":"2022-05-05T07:59:15","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T14:59:15","slug":"judge-denies-tro-to-health-plans-group-over-sb-510","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2022\/05\/05\/judge-denies-tro-to-health-plans-group-over-sb-510\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge denies TRO to health plans group over SB 510"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A judge this week denied a request by the California Association of Health Plans<\/em> for a temporary restraining order while it challenges the constitutionality of a state bill requiring health plans and insurers to pay for workplace COVID-19 testing performed retroactively to March 4, 2020 and to do so by July 1.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff instead scheduled a June 24 hearing on whether a preliminary injunction should be issued.<\/p>\n

The CAHP is a trade association representing 45 full-service plans that provide health care coverage to more than 26 million Californians through the individual and group markets. Their petition was brought Nov. 10 against Attorney General Rob Bonta<\/strong> as well as Mary Watanabe<\/strong>, director of the California Department of Managed Health Care.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the organization asked for an emergency hearing on their TRO request, arguing that to have a chance at even partial compliance, health plans would have to immediately begin to process claims, costing them hundreds of hours and millions of dollars in unrecoverable costs.<\/p>\n

“Without a TRO, health plans would have no choice but to start processing claims to avoid interest and penalties on at least some claims,” the CAHP attorneys stated in their court papers.<\/p>\n

State Senate Bill 510,<\/a> signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/strong> on Oct. 8, became effective Jan. 1 and requires health plans and health insurers to reimburse both in-network and out-of-network providers for COVID-19 testing and related services without any cost-sharing, prior authorization or other utilization management requirements.\u00a0The March 4, 2020, date for retroactive payments refers to when Newsom declared a state of emergency for COVID-19.<\/p>\n

SB 510 requires insurers to pay for COVID-19 testing of workers in a workplace setting even if they are asymptomatic and have no known exposure. The CAHP challenges SB 510’s retroactivity requirement as unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

“It strips health plans of vested contractual rights without any valid social justification — in violation of both the contracts clause and the due process clause — and imposes criminal penalties for past conduct,” the CAHP lawyers argue in their court papers.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A judge this week denied a request by the California Association of Health Plans for a temporary restraining order while it challenges the constitutionality of a state bill requiring health plans and insurers to pay for workplace COVID-19 testing performed retroactively to March 4, 2020 and to do so by July 1. Los Angeles Superior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":102723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1499],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108229,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108228\/revisions\/108229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}