Terms Used In Michigan Laws 500.3529

  • Affiliated provider: means a health professional, licensed hospital, licensed pharmacy, or any other institution, organization, or person that has entered into a participating provider contract, directly or indirectly, with a health maintenance organization to render 1 or more health services to an enrollee. See Michigan Laws 500.3501
  • Commissioner: means the director. See Michigan Laws 500.102
  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Enrollee: means an individual who is entitled to receive health services under a health insurance contract, unless the context requires otherwise. See Michigan Laws 500.116
  • Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
  • Health maintenance organization: means a person that, among other things, does the following:
  (i) Delivers health services that are medically necessary to enrollees under the terms of its health maintenance contract, directly or through contracts with affiliated providers, in exchange for a fixed prepaid sum or per capita prepayment, without regard to the frequency, extent, or kind of health services. See Michigan Laws 500.3501
  • Health professional: means an individual licensed, certified, or authorized in accordance with state law to practice a health profession in his or her respective state. See Michigan Laws 500.3501
  •   (1) A health maintenance organization may contract with or employ health professionals on the basis of cost, quality, availability of services to the membership, conformity to the administrative procedures of the health maintenance organization, and other factors relevant to delivery of economical, quality care, but shall not discriminate solely on the basis of the class of health professionals to which the health professional belongs.
      (2) A health maintenance organization shall enter into contracts with providers through which health care services are usually provided to enrollees under the health maintenance organization plan.
      (3) An affiliated provider contract shall prohibit the provider from seeking payment from the enrollee for services provided pursuant to the provider contract, except that the contract may allow affiliated providers to collect copayments, coinsurances, and deductibles directly from enrollees.
      (4) An affiliated provider contract shall contain provisions assuring all of the following:
      (a) The provider meets applicable licensure or certification requirements.
      (b) Appropriate access by the health maintenance organization to records or reports concerning services to its enrollees.
      (c) The provider cooperates with the health maintenance organization’s quality assurance activities.
      (5) The commissioner may waive the contract requirement under subsection (2) if a health maintenance organization has demonstrated that it is unable to obtain a contract and accessibility to patient care would not be compromised. When 10% or more of a health maintenance organization’s elective inpatient admissions, or projected admissions for a new health maintenance organization, occur in hospitals with which the health maintenance organization does not have contracts or agreements that protect enrollees from liability for authorized admissions and services, the health maintenance organization may be required to maintain a hospital reserve fund equal to 3 months’ projected claims from such hospitals.
      (6) A health maintenance organization shall submit to the commissioner for approval standard contract formats proposed for use with its affiliated providers and any substantive changes to those contracts. The contract format or change is considered approved 30 days after filing unless approved or disapproved within the 30 days. As used in this subsection, “substantive changes to contract formats” means a change to a provider contract that alters the method of payment to a provider, alters the risk assumed by each party to the contract, or affects a provision required by law.
      (7) A health maintenance organization or applicant shall provide evidence that it has employed, or has executed affiliation contracts with, a sufficient number of providers to enable it to deliver the health maintenance services it proposes to offer.