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.

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Allison Bell

Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. 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 through X at @Think_Allison.