Current through Register Vol. 63, No. 9, September 1, 2024
As used in OAR
836-020-0770 to
836-020-0805:
(1) "Allowable expense,"
except as otherwise provided in this rule or as otherwise used in a statute, is
defined and its use is governed by the following:
(a) The term means any health care expense,
including coinsurance or copayments and without reduction for any applicable
deductible, that is covered in full or in part by any of the plans covering the
person.
(b) If a plan is advised by
a covered person that all plans covering the person are high-deductible health
plans and the person intends to contribute to a health savings account
established in accordance with Section
223 of the Internal Revenue Code
of 1986, the primary high-deductible health plan's deductible is not an
allowable expense, except for any health care expense incurred that may not be
subject to the deductible as described in section
223(c)(2)(C) of
the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
(c) An expense or a portion of an expense
that is not covered by any of the plans is not an allowable expense.
(d) Any expense that a provider by law or in
accordance with a contractual agreement is prohibited from charging a covered
person is not an allowable expense.
(e) The following are examples of expenses
that are not allowable expenses:
(A) If a
person is confined in a private hospital room, the difference between the cost
of a semi-private room in the hospital and the private room is not an allowable
expense, unless one of the plans provides coverage for private hospital room
expenses.
(B) If a person is
covered by two or more plans that compute their benefit payments on the basis
of usual and customary fees or relative value schedule reimbursement or other
similar reimbursement methodology, any amount charged by the provider in excess
of the highest reimbursement amount for a specified benefit is not an allowable
expense.
(C) If a person is covered
by two or more plans that provide benefits or services on the basis of
negotiated fees, any amount in excess of the highest of the negotiated fees is
not an allowable expense.
(D) If a
person is covered by one plan that calculates its benefits or services on the
basis of usual and customary fees or relative value schedule reimbursement or
other similar reimbursement methodology and another plan that provides its
benefits or services on the basis of negotiated fees, the primary plan's
payment arrangement shall be the allowable expense for all plans. However, if
the provider has contracted with the secondary plan to provide the benefit or
service for a specific negotiated fee or payment amount that is different than
the primary plan's payment arrangement and if the provider's contract permits,
that negotiated fee or payment shall be the allowable expense used by the
secondary plan to determine its benefits.
(f) The definition of "allowable expense" may
exclude certain types of coverage or benefits such as dental care, vision care,
prescription drug or hearing aids. A plan that limits the application of COB to
certain coverages or benefits may limit the definition of allowable expense in
its contract to expenses that are similar to the expenses that it provides.
When COB is restricted to specific coverages or benefits in a contract, the
definition of allowable expense shall include similar expenses to which COB
applies.
(g) When a plan provides
benefits in the form of services, the reasonable cash value of each service is
considered an allowable expense and a benefit paid.
(h) The amount of the reduction may be
excluded from allowable expense when a covered person's benefits are reduced
under a primary plan:
(A) Because the covered
person does not comply with the plan provisions concerning second surgical
opinions or precertification of admissions or services; or
(B) Because the covered person has a lower
benefit for the reason that the covered person did not use a preferred
provider.
(2)
"Birthday" refers only to month and day in a calendar year and does not include
the year in which the individual is born.
(3) "Claim" means a request that benefits of
a plan be provided or paid. The benefits claimed may be in the form of:
(a) Services, including supplies;
(b) Payment for all or a portion of the
expenses incurred;
(c) A
combination of subsections (a) and (b) of this section; or
(d) An indemnification.
(4) "Closed panel plan" means a plan that
provides health benefits to covered persons primarily in the form of services
through a panel of providers that have contracted with or are employed by the
plan, and that excludes benefits for services provided by other providers,
except in cases of emergency or referral by a panel member.
(5) "Consolidated Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act of 1985" or "COBRA" means coverage provided under a right of
continuation pursuant to federal law.
(6) "Coordination of benefits" or "COB" means
a provision establishing an order in which plans pay their claims, and
permitting secondary plans to reduce their benefits so that the combined
benefits of all plans do not exceed total allowable expenses.
(7) "Custodial parent" means:
(a) The parent awarded custody of a child by
a court decree; or
(b) In the
absence of a court decree, the parent with whom the child resides more than one
half of the calendar year without regard to any temporary visitation.
(8) "Group-type contract:"
(a) Means a contract that is not available to
the general public and is obtained and maintained only because of membership in
or a connection with a particular organization or group, including blanket
coverage; and.
(b) Does not include
an individually underwritten and issued guaranteed renewable policy even if the
policy is purchased through payroll deduction at a premium savings to the
insured since the insured would have the right to maintain or renew the policy
independently of continued employment with the employer.
(9) "High-deductible health plan" has the
meaning given the term under section
223 of the Internal Revenue Code
of 1986, as amended by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and
Modernization Act of 2003.
(10)
"Hospital indemnity benefits:"
(a) Means
benefits not related to expenses incurred; and
(b) "Hospital indemnity benefits" does not
include reimbursement-type benefits even if they are designed or administered
to give the insured the right to elect indemnity-type benefits at the time of
claim.
(11) "Plan" is
defined and its use is governed by the following:
(a) The term means a form of coverage with
which coordination is allowed. Separate parts of a plan for members of a group
that are provided through alternative contracts that are intended to be part of
a coordinated package of benefits are considered one plan and there is no COB
among the separate parts of the plan.
(b) If a plan coordinates benefits, its
contract shall state the types of coverage that will be considered in applying
the COB provision of that contract. Whether the contract uses the term "plan"
or some other term such as "program," the contractual definition may be no
broader than the definition of "plan" in this subsection. The definition of
"plan" in the model COB provision in Appendix A (Exhibit 1 to OAR
836-020-0780) is an
example.
(c) "Plan" includes:
(A) Group insurance contracts and subscriber
contracts;
(B) Uninsured
arrangements of group or group-type coverage;
(C) Group coverage through closed panel
plans;
(D) Group-type
contracts;
(E) The medical care
components of group long-term care contracts, such as skilled nursing care;
and
(F) Medicare or other
governmental benefits, as permitted by law, except as provided in subsection
(d)(H) of this section. That part of the definition of plan may be limited to
the hospital, medical and surgical benefits of the governmental
program.
(d) "Plan" does
not include:
(A) Hospital indemnity coverage
benefits or other fixed indemnity coverage;
(B) Accident only coverage;
(C) Specified disease or specified accident
coverage;
(D) School accident-type
coverages that cover students for accidents only, including athletic injuries,
either on a twenty-four-hour basis or on a "to and from school"
basis;
(E) Benefits provided in
group long-term care insurance policies for non-medical services, including for
example, personal care, adult day care, homemaker services, assistance with
activities of daily living, respite care and custodial care or for contracts
that pay a fixed daily benefit without regard to expenses incurred or the
receipt of services;
(F) Medicare
supplement policies;
(G) A state
plan under Medicaid; or
(H) A
governmental plan, that by law provides benefits that are in excess of those of
any private insurance plan or other non-governmental plan.
(12) "Primary plan"
means a plan whose benefits for a person's health care coverage must be
determined without taking the existence of any other plan into consideration. A
plan is a primary plan if:
(a) The plan has no
order of benefit determination rules or its rules differ from those permitted
by OAR 836-020-0770 to 836-020-0805;
or
(b) All plans that cover the
person use the order of benefit determination rules required by OAR
836-020-0770 to 836-020-0805,
and under those rules the plan determines its benefits first.
(13) "Secondary plan" means a plan
that is not a primary plan.
Appendices referenced are available from the
agency.
Stat. Auth: ORS
731.244,
743.552
Stats. Implemented: 743.549,
743.552
