Insurance & Commerce - Senate
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Bills discussed (10)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
HB1378
Act 204
· 4 mentions in chapter, transcript, agenda
Matched: “HB1378 Beaty Jr. TO AMEND THE COMPOSITION AND MEETING REQUIREMENTS…”
|
TO AMEND THE COMPOSITION AND MEETING REQUIREMENTS OF THE STATE BOARD OF FINANCE; AND TO … | Beaty Jr. | Notification that HB1378 is now Act 204 |
|
SB257
Act 515
· 3 mentions in chapter, transcript, agenda
Matched: “SB257 C. Penzo TO AMEND THE MEDICAID FAIRNESS ACT; TO EXTEND THE…”
|
TO AMEND THE MEDICAID FAIRNESS ACT; TO EXTEND THE APPEAL PERIOD FOR PROVIDERS IN THE … | C. Penzo | Notification that SB257 is now Act 515 |
|
HB1238
Act 306
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…rs and Staff Only'. DEFERRED BILLS Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1238 Cavenaugh TO AUTHORIZE A MORTGAGOR TO RECOVER FEES IN CERTA…”
|
TO AUTHORIZE A MORTGAGOR TO RECOVER FEES IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER THE STATUTORY FORECLOSURE LAW. | Cavenaugh | Notification that HB1238 is now Act 306 |
|
SB103
Act 425
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…MUM REIMBURSEMENT RATE FOR BREAST RECONSTRUCTION SURGERIES. SB103 C. Penzo TO CREATE THE PHARMACY NONDISCRIMINATION ACT; TO R…”
|
TO CREATE THE PHARMACY NONDISCRIMINATION ACT; TO REQUIRE PHARMACY BENEFITS MANAGERS TO ACCEPT ANY PHARMACY … | C. Penzo | Notification that SB103 is now Act 425 |
|
SB104
Act 514
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ONABLE TERMS OF PARTICIPATION; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. SB104 C. Penzo TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS PHARMACY BENEFITS MANAGER LI…”
|
TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS PHARMACY BENEFITS MANAGER LICENSURE ACT; TO PROTECT PATIENTS' RIGHTS AND ACCESS … | C. Penzo | Notification that SB104 is now Act 514 |
|
SB123
Act 553
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…HTS AND ACCESS TO MEDICATIONS; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. SB123 G. Leding TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING COVERAGE FOR MAMMOGRA…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING COVERAGE FOR MAMMOGRAMS AND BREAST ULTRASOUNDS. | G. Leding | Notification that SB123 is now Act 553 |
|
SB140
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…CONCERNING COVERAGE FOR MAMMOGRAMS AND BREAST ULTRASOUNDS. SB140 J. Boyd TO MANDATE THE USE OF BIOSIMILAR MEDICINES UNDER HE…”
|
TO MANDATE THE USE OF BIOSIMILAR MEDICINES UNDER HEALTH BENEFIT PLANS; TO REQUIRE A HEALTHCARE … | J. Boyd | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB179
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER THE STATUTORY FORECLOSURE LAW. SB179 J. Boyd TO ESTABLISH THE STRENGTHEN ARKANSAS HOMES ACT; AND…”
|
TO ESTABLISH THE STRENGTHEN ARKANSAS HOMES ACT; AND TO CREATE THE STRENGTHEN ARKANSAS HOMES PROGRAM … | J. Boyd | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB242
Act 344
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “AGENDA (Revised 2/24/25 @ 5:15 PM) Added SB242 Senate Committee on Insurance and Commerce Tuesday, Februar…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING LOANS INVOLVING THE STOCK OF A STATE BANK. | Hill | Notification that SB242 is now Act 344 |
|
SB83
Act 424
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…D OF FINANCE. PENDING FISCAL IMPACT Number Sponsor Subtitle SB83 J. Bryant TO MANDATE COVERAGE FOR BREAST RECONSTRUCTION SUR…”
|
TO MANDATE COVERAGE FOR BREAST RECONSTRUCTION SURGERIES; TO REQUIRE PRIOR AUTHORIZATION FOR BREAST RECONSTRUCTION SURGERIES; … | J. Bryant | Notification that SB83 is now Act 424 |
Machine transcript
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Speaker 6
0:21
right. Where are y'all at all. I saw your name on there. It's not good for my bills for me to go down there but Boyd can be own
Speaker 8
0:37
I saw your name on there. It's not good for my bills for
Speaker 10
0:46
me to go down there but Boyd can be own worst enemy.
Speaker 11
0:49
Hey Howard, are you coming, I'm just gonna wait on
Speaker 12
0:55
you because we just got two deals. Yeah. She. Oh.
Speaker 14
1:04
you. 171, yeah. I'm, I'm gonna run penzo. He's got a bill for you, so alright, see you, bud bye.
Senate state insurance commerce come to order. I almost
Speaker 15
1:23
did it again. So Senator Penzo, you want to do Senate Bill 257. 257. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:42
got Simon here to present with me. I'll let him introduce himself. My name is Simon De Britsov,
Simon De
Unverified
1:54
Highlands Oncology Group where a oncology clinic in Northwest Arkansas. Go
Simon De
Unverified
2:08
for having me, uh, Chairman and committee members. This bill is about changing some of the timelines in the Medicaid appeals process. Currently it affords 35 days for providers to provide a response, so when Medicaid makes the decision to
deny a claim. They send a letter and then the practice, it comes into the practice and there's a bunch of letters that come in. We have about 100 letters from different insurance companies that come in every day. And so we're trying to keep up with the volume and this changes it just from 35 days to 65 days in order to afford us time to respond coherently and investigate the reason and also when there are emergencies in Arkansas such as tornadoes or anything like that. There have been occasions where by the time we opened up the letter, it has
already expired the timeline to me this is an administrative simplification because we do have workarounds to reopen the claim. But I believe that creates extra work on the state side. Additional phone calls and additional work for the practice all to end up at the same goal of affording a little bit of extra time to reopen the claim and appeal it. The second part of this bill requires that information, protocols and policies be published online and available for providers, and
that's just like laws in order for us to comply with the requirements of DHS, whatever they may be, we to be able to read them and adhere to them and make sure that
Speaker 15
3:41
we're educated on them. So this is strictly by mail, no electronic movement of these documents. The documents are
Simon De
Unverified
3:48
available on the portal, but if you have a large practice with multiple clinics, you have to currently go to every single one manually and pull them up, so it
is a very prohibitive in terms of time for the staff to go to the portal, log in, go to each practice, and reconcile what they have already pulled in and what they have not because there's not like a tracker mechanism that says You've already read this one or you haven't. It's basically start,
Speaker 15
4:16
start fresh, so any other questions from members? Senator Boyden. Thank
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
4:24
Simon? um. This sounds like a lot of bureaucracy. Do you have any
idea how much this bureaucracy costs the average clinic to have to deal with all of this. I mean, are we, it sounds like we're, you're having to spend a lot of money and efforts on bureaucracy rather than taking care of patients, so any, any ideas just out
Simon De
Unverified
4:47
of curiosity, yes, sir, just, just for Medicaid alone, most practices have about 2 dedicated reps for a larger practice just working these on the back office side, and I would say that There's also additional burden at the state level because we're
calling them and you know that's obviously something that this body pays for. We're calling them to discuss it. We're calling them to appeal it. We're calling them to reopen claims and so I would imagine there's there's waste on both sides, OK,
Speaker 32
5:15
and you don't have to, you might not want
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
5:18
to answer this specific to Medicaid, but if you want to, that's fine with me. Uh, I mean, do you even get your costs really reimbursed overall with, with Medicaid. I mean, like that's a a lot
Speaker 23
5:29
of bureaucracy, right? Unfortunately, not all services
Simon De
Unverified
5:35
and not all specifically for us drugs and medications, they don't all reimburse acquisition costs. There's, I think, about 30% of drugs that we dispense that are below cost, so but you know it's part of serving
Speaker 27
5:47
Arkansans and so, uh, better recover some if possible, then take the full hit. Thank
Speaker 29
5:54
you. I appreciate your testimony. Senator Johnson
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
5:59
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, Simon or Senator Penzo, I don't
care who answers, um, are we changing is this uh this 35 day thing is this in rural or is it in statute. Yeah, it's currently in rural, I believe we're mandating the agency to change their rule to
Speaker 23
6:24
65 days. Uh, yes, sir, it has come up for comment before and practices have submitted comments,
Simon De
Unverified
6:31
I believe, and unfortunately through that process nothing, there was no feedback, so I'm
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
6:37
not quite sure. OK, well, I have no problem, you know, telling agencies what to do, you know, I mean we set policy and they carry it out. So if we're changing that, then that's fine, but I didn't know if we were, it would still require them to they would they would be now mandated by the General Assembly to
mend their rule. Am I reading that right, OK, that answers it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank
Speaker 14
6:59
you. Thank you. Is there any other questions? See none, uh, Simon, you're the only one that signed up to be for uh are you good?
Is there anybody in the audience would like to speak for or against this bill. Seeing none,
Simon De
Unverified
7:27
you want to close for your bill. I would like to add 11 little comment. All of their insurance companies customarily provide 90 days minimum, so this is still even below what the standard is for all other insurance companies, including the past programs,
even for the past programs I have 120 days in my contracts for for the same process, so you know this is just 30 days just for traditional Medicaid. Thank you. We're closed. You
Speaker 15
7:58
want to make a motion, a motion to pass motion by Senator Penzo, seconded by Senator Boyd, uh, any discussion, all in favor say aye. I'll oppose like son. Thank you, Senator. You passed your bill. Thank you.
Speaker 14
8:16
Next is House Bill 1378. Representative Beatty, you just come down here. I can't even see you if you go all the way down to the other end. Yeah, it's a long ways. You got anybody that you need to come
Speaker 15
8:36
to the table with you. All right. Just recognize yourself and your you're welcome to proceed.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
8:47
Representative Howard Beatty, District 95. I'm here to present House Bill 1378. It's an agency bill. It's to amend the composition and meeting requirements for the state board of Finance and repeal the requirements of the employment of a chief compliance officer by the state board. This bill makes 4 updates to the state board of Finance. It lowers the required number of board members to make a quorum from 7 to 6 members. The board struggled in the past to reach a
quorum because members have other important duties and responsibilities in the state. It replaces the Securities commissioner on the board with the secretary of TS&S, um, Act 475 of 23 transferred um The administrative duties of the state securities department to the state bank department and allowed the bank commissioner to act as the securities commissioner. This will ensure that they are too bored, that two board positions aren't held
by one individual and it permits the governor's designee to serve on the board, and that would allow for flexibility in the event the governor's scheduled conflicts with meetings and prevents attendance at the meeting. And it eliminates the requirement that the chief compliance officer be employed by the board. Currently that compliance officer is a position that's authorized for the treasurer of the state. And it's not practical that a chief compliance officer be paid for or be an employee of the
board so that the The treasurer's office is where that employee would be. And with that,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
10:33
I'll Entertaining questions. The question Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Beatty, uh, I get the idea with what happened in the Securities department he had going under the bank department makes perfect sense, but why the secretary of transformation and shared services. Well, if you
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
10:48
think back Employee benefits and and that world that they're over over those areas, so that was the That was the reason for transformation Shared Service. We can have someone from DFNA come and speak, and they might can address that concern a little bit better, but um that, that's what I
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
11:08
remember, OK, and this is kind of a
general question for the DFA people or anybody, really. Isn't there a bill somewhere I've seen recently that would change the
name of TSS to you nodding, Mr. Chairman. So would we need to amend this bill to like that, or is there a in the additional bill, does
it, would it clean this up as well in the language of
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
11:31
that the bill that you're referencing is maybe 187. I don't know if that's the right 1. 187, 185. I won't hold you to that the language in that bill is a one-time language anywhere else in code that that that needs to be changed. It will change that, correct that in code. OK. And I would still want to hear
Speaker 54
11:54
the logic for TSS. Sure, Andy Babbitt with DFA. Basically the logic is Excuse me, uh, Part of the responsibility of Board of Finance is to oversee all contracts that are coming out of the EBD, so EBD falls under the Secretary of Transformation Shared Services, so that gives the direct line of review there and helps the board better understand the direction
EBD's going and any effect it might have on on the calls to agencies for increases there.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
12:31
OK, well, that's it's gone out, uh, but now this does not allow uh the secretary of Department of
Transformation and Shared Services to designate someone that the secretary would have to serve. OK, well, that's, that's good. It makes with EVD It it does make a lot of sense. Thank you, Mr. Babbitt. Represent. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is there any other questions?
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
12:57
Seeing none, uh, You want to close for your bill. I'm closed. I would, I would appreciate a motion due pass and a good vote and also appreciate y'all giving uh Senator Hill a little grief, uh, for hitting me this morning to come
Speaker 15
13:14
to committee, but I've enjoyed the time here. Thank you. Thank you have a motion motion by Senator Johnson, seconded by Senator Boyd, any discussion seeing none.
Speaker 14
13:22
What's the will of the committee, all in favor say aye.
All opposed like sign. Thank you. Representative Beatty, you have passed your bill. We have no other business to come before the committee today, uh. I think We
Speaker 15
13:41
have A dinner tonight. Has anybody got a public health and insurance
Speaker 56
13:49
Public health and insurance and commerce, I think
Speaker 15
13:52
it's over at Capitol Hill. Is that tonight or tomorrow night?
To that at 6 over to apartments because they had to have a bigger place, so. No, it's, it's, it's the apartments over here in the dining area, yeah. So It we
Speaker 14
14:13
have a, yeah, dinner. I have no idea what the what the meal is going to consist of, but if anybody can come, I, you
know, appreciate it if y'all y'all are welcome. We are adjourned. Mr. Chair. Thank you. That was a long one.
Agenda
Call To Order
REGULAR AGENDA
SB257 C. Penzo TO AMEND THE MEDICAID FAIRNESS ACT; TO EXTEND THE APPEAL PERIOD FOR PROVIDERS IN THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM; AND TO REQUIRE COMPREHENSIVE INFORMATION IN NOTICES OF ADVERSE DECISIONS.
HB1378 Beaty Jr. TO AMEND THE COMPOSITION AND MEETING REQUIREMENTS OF THE STATE BOARD OF FINANCE; AND TO REPEAL THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE EMPLOYMENT OF A CHIEF COMPLIANCE OFFICER BY THE STATE BOARD OF FINANCE.
Adjourn
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — INSURANCE & COMMERCE - SENATE, Feb 25, 2025 | Agenda | 2 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Speaker 1
Speaker 6
Speaker 7
Speaker 9
Speaker 8
Speaker 10
Speaker 11
Speaker 12
Speaker 13
Speaker 14
Speaker 15
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
Simon De
Unverified
Speaker 23
Speaker 29
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
Speaker 32
Speaker 27
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
Speaker 54
Speaker 56