Covered California managers want to make sure the commercial plans it sells give patients an acceptable level of access to doctors, hospitals and health care providers.

The staff employees and board of the state-based Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act public exchange are looking into the idea of having an outside organization mobilize "secret shoppers" to check the provider networks.

The secret shoppers would call or visit the providers in a plan provider directory and see whether the providers would take new patients with coverage from that plan, or whether the providers would let patients use that plan to pay for care.

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Allison Bell

Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor's insurance editor, previously was LifeHealthPro's health insurance editor. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @Think_Allison.