Health insurers in New Hampshire must cover the costs of testing for Covid -19 and help inform the public by making sure they have accurate information about the outbreak online and that “nurse help lines and other similar programs are staffed appropriately,” he state Insurance Department said Tuesday.
“The reason that we acted so fast is we wanted to ensure that people who were eligible for a test or had a reason to get tested,” said Alex Feldvebel, deputy commissioner of the New Hampshire Insurance Department. “So they didn’t put off going to a doctor because (they think), ‘it’s the weekend, maybe I have a large co-pay for going to an emergency room, am I going to potentially spread this because I couldn’t justify the cost.’ ”
The order covers only insurance plans regulated by the New Hampshire Insurance Department, not plans obtained through employers. It will affect about half of the people in New Hampshire who have health insurance, Feldvebel said.
The department has been in conversation with those insurers that it does not regulate and Feldvebel said that many national payers like Cigna and Anthem have decided to waive cost sharing for their members voluntarily.
The announcement came as the Department of Health and Human Services announced a fifth presumptive case of the disease in New Hampshire, an adult man from Rockingham County who is isolated at home, and said they were monitoring more than 200 other people.
Feldvebel said the tests would likely primarily be those offered by Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, the two national companies that have developed testing services. Testing may not occur in doctors’ offices but at special testing sites. Insurance could conceivably cover other tests made available by the CDC.
New Hampshire has about 200 testing kits on hand, according to state epidemiologist Benjamin Chan.
The order from the Insurance Department says that testing must be covered for all members who meet the CDC criteria for testing.
“It’s a decision between your medical provider and a health provider about whether or not you need it,” Feldvebel said.
The order says coverage must include office visits, urgent care and emergency services to test for the viral disease. It notes that under state law, insurance providers cannot deny payment for consultations via telemedicine, and says that insurers should “minimize the extent to which prior authorization requirements might act as a barrier” to getting treatment. Prescriptions must also be covered.
“This order will help more New Hampshire consumers feel confident that they can access necessary services without cost acting as a barrier,” Gov. Chris Sununu wrote in a Twitter thread about the announcement.
The order can be seen online www.governor.nh.gov/news-media/press-2020/documents/health-care-coronovirus-order.pdf
