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February 05, 2015 at 05:29 AM
A group of state insurance regulators is considering ideas for making some states’ health insurance rate review programs more open to consumers.
The Consumer Liaison Committee, an arm of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), has posted a collection of ideas from Jesse Ellis O’Brien, Lynn Quincy and Debra Judy on its section of the NAIC’s website.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 requires the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to set minimum requirements for state rate change reasonableness reviews. In practice, HHS has ruled that states either have to review proposed rate increases that exceed a 10 percent cut-off or let HHS do the reviews.
See also: PPACA: CMS Sticks with 10% Rate Review Trigger
HHS requires states to post rate review summary information on a public HHS website. Other state review publication practices very. Some put a public file on the Web when an insurer files an initial rate change applications. Others post detailed information only after completing a review, and some post only the summaries.
The people who came up with ideas on the Consumer Liaison Committee site are consumer representatives, or individuals chosen to provide official representation for consumers’ interests in NAIC proceedings. They say some states still give consumers too little information about reviews.
To learn more about the reps’ ideas for rate review transparency standards, read on.
