The 2018 State Legislative Session kicked off today when Governor Cuomo delivered his annual State of the State address. Prior to the speech, the Governor released 22 separate proposals. Although only one of those, a proposal to help localities develop health insurance consortia, touched on healthcare, more than 25 pages of the printed address cover healthcare proposals. The full text of the address can be found here. Some highlights include:
- Program legislation to codify regulations issued last year on contraceptive coverage. A memo reviewing the regulations can be found here;
- Limit refills on opioid refills for acute pain or new prescriptions for chronic pain to seven days without an in-person visit with the prescriber prescription limits;
- Eliminate of prior-authorization and co-payment for outpatient addiction treatment;
- Create a Statewide Pain Management Steering Committee to develop additional recommendations on pain management issues;
- Promote patients’ use of Advance Care Planning for healthcare decisions;
- Require health plans to provide members with information and tools that promote price transparency, such as cost-estimators and provider quality ratings;
- Develop recommendations to simplify medical bills;
- Create a searchable database of all health insurance external appeals; and
- Expand the sites Medicaid enrollees can receive telehealth services to include their home.