Capitol Beat
Monday, January 15th, 2001 Fraud Legislation & Regulation Life & Health Workers' CompensationIn an effort that President Clinton is calling the final executive action he can take to provide critical protections to patients, his administration has promulgated regulations that shorten the claims and appeals processes. The new regulations, however, are not as broad as the provisions included in recently proposed patients‘ right legislation. Although both the House and Senate passed different versions of that bill, a joint committee assigned to draft a consensus bill failed to present strong bipartisan legislation. Under the new rules, urgent care claims must be processed within 72 hours, and any appeals on those claims must also be decided within 72 hours. Otherwise, initial health claims from employees must be processed within 30 days, two months faster than under the previous 90-day requirement, while the time period for deciding appeals has also been shortened in some cases, from 60 to 30 days.
