Dear Florida Orthopaedic Society Members,
SB 1122, which would require managed care companies to honor an insured’s assignment of benefits, has passed the legislature and now awaits action by the Governor. The Florida Medical Association (FMA) and Florida Orthopaedic Society (FOS) were able to pass this legislation with the help of your society’s leadership, lobbyists and members. It took a tremendous effort with all of organized medicine pulling together to pass this bill. The opposition from big insurance, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida and United was ferocious, and unfortunately this opposition continues.
We have discussed this bill with the Governor’s staff, who have indicated that they have serious concerns. The managed care companies have been attempting to persuade the Governor to veto this bill, and will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. As demonstrated by their argument, during the last few days of session, that mandatory assignment would put Blue Cross out of business, their goal is to cause as much confusion and fear of this bill as possible.
To convince the Governor to sign this bill, it is imperative that all of organized medicine forcefully transmits the message of how important this bill is, both to physicians and patients.
The legislation requires insurance companies to recognize a valid Assignment of Benefits for non-contracted physicians. This would require insurance carriers to send reimbursement to the non-contracted physician rendering the services rather than the patient, if requested by the patient. This will address the routine practice of Blue Cross Blue Shield & United who send the reimbursement to the patient for out-of-network care. Often times the patient does not forward the reimbursement to the physician and the physician is unable to collect reimbursement from the patient for services rendered.
We are requesting your help in sending individual letters to Governor Charlie Crist. I have attached a sample letter to this email and copied it below. Please feel free to copy and paste into an email to the Governor. Better yet, you may consider dropping the letter onto your letterhead and faxing it in and mailing a hard copy. Please consider adding your own personal touch to the letters as well so they are not all identical.
Thank you very much for your assistance. Please confirm with me if you are able to generate any letters. It is critical that we compete with the significant volume of letters that the insurance industry is generating against this legislation. Please ask all of your physicians and your staff to send in letters at this time.
Contact information for the Governor:
Email address: Charlie.Crist@myflorida.com
Fax: (850) 487-0801
Office of Governor Charlie Crist
State of Florida
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
Thanks very much for your assistance on this important issue.
Sincerely,
Fraser Cobbe
Executive Director
Florida Orthopaedic Society
Download Sample Support Letter for SB 1122
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