(a)  Every individual or group health insurance contract, plan, or policy that provides prescription coverage and is delivered, issued for delivery, or renewed in this state shall provide coverage for F.D.A. approved contraceptive drugs and devices requiring a prescription; provided, that nothing in this subsection shall be deemed to mandate or require coverage for the prescription drug RU 486.

Terms Used In Rhode Island General Laws 27-41-59

  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
  • Employer: means any person, partnership, association, trust, estate, or corporation, whether foreign or domestic, or the legal representative, trustee in bankruptcy, receiver, or trustee of a receiver, or the legal representative of a deceased person, including the state of Rhode Island and each city and town in the state, which has in its employ one or more individuals during any calendar year. See Rhode Island General Laws 27-41-2
  • Healthcare services: means any services included in the furnishing to any individual of medical, podiatric, or dental care, or hospitalization, or incident to the furnishing of that care or hospitalization, and the furnishing to any person of any and all other services for the purpose of preventing, alleviating, curing, or healing human illness, injury, or physical disability. See Rhode Island General Laws 27-41-2

(b)  Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, any health maintenance corporation may issue to a religious employer an individual or group health insurance contract, plan, or policy that excludes coverage for prescription contraceptive methods that are contrary to the religious employer’s bona fide religious tenets.

(c)  As used in this section, “religious employer” means an employer that is a “church or a qualified church-controlled organization” as defined in 26 U.S.C. § 3121.

(d)  Every religious employer that invokes the exemption provided under this section shall provide written notice to prospective enrollees prior to enrollment with the plan, listing the contraceptive healthcare services the employer refuses to cover for religious reasons.

(e)  Beginning on the first day of each plan year after April 1, 2019, every health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage that covers prescription contraception shall not restrict reimbursement for dispensing a covered prescription contraceptive up to three hundred sixty-five (365) days at a time.

History of Section.
P.L. 2000, ch. 120, § 4; P.L. 2000, ch. 126, § 4; P.L. 2002, ch. 292, § 85; P.L. 2018, ch. 230, § 8; P.L. 2018, ch. 234, § 8.