The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) The current regulatory responsibility for medical services is spread among many governmental entities including all of the following:

Terms Used In California Government Code 11840

  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
  • Process: includes a writ or summons issued in the course of judicial proceedings of either a civil or criminal nature. See California Government Code 22
  • State: means the State of California, unless applied to the different parts of the United States. See California Government Code 18

(1) The Medical Board of California.

(2) The Department of Managed Health Care.

(3) The State Department of Health Care Services.

(b) This overlapping jurisdiction has resulted in multiple and duplicative audits of many physician offices, additional expense and hiring of additional staff to respond to duplicate requests for medical records, and the review of confidential medical records by a growing number of governmental entities.

(c) In the interest of reducing the number of separate times various public and private agencies review confidential medical records, streamlining the regulatory process, and reducing the redundant reviews of the offices of physicians, it is the intent of the Legislature to coordinate, to the extent feasible, as many of these regulatory functions as possible.

(d) In addition to government audits of physician offices, numerous private entities also conduct reviews of physician offices.

(e) It is in the public interest to achieve ultimately a uniform system of private and public auditing of physician offices and, thus, streamline the process as much as possible.

(Amended by Stats. 2015, Ch. 190, Sec. 62. (AB 1517) Effective January 1, 2016.)

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