July 25, 2023
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Cambia Health Solutions, Inc., and its subsidiaries — including Regence BlueShield — have provided an action plan to Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler for resolving the issue of its members receiving balance bills from ground ambulance service providers.
Regence, per the company’s letter to Kreidler’s office on July 7, has changed how it handles balance bills from ground ambulance service providers. It will also:
- Reprocess approximately 670 claims from policyholders who were balance billed by ambulance companies.
- Provide Kreidler’s office with a report on the claims reprocessing.
- Notify the impacted policyholders of how the company is addressing claims if policyholders have already paid.
The affected policyholders had paid their cost-sharing amounts for ground ambulance transportation and Regence paid its pre-determined rate to the ambulance companies. But Regence didn’t have a contract with some of the ambulance companies, meaning consumers were billed the difference between Regence’s rate and the ambulance providers’ charges — a practice known as “balance billing.”
In some cases, the consumers were charged hundreds of dollars on top of their cost-sharing amount. The ground ambulance providers sent some consumers to collections over these unpaid bills that in some cases were in the thousands of dollars.
In May, Kreidler directed Regence to reprocess ground ambulance claims from policyholders who were balance billed by ambulance companies.
“I’m glad to see Regence taking action to correct this issue, which left consumers unfairly caught between the insurer and the providers,” Kreidler said.
Kreidler’s office was directed by the Washington state Legislature to study how to prevent surprise billing from ground ambulance services and whether these services should fall under Washington’s Balance Billing Protection Act. The office’s report is due to the legislature on October 1, 2023.