Workers' compensation: individually identifiable information.

Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which basic health care services are provided to qualified low-income persons. Existing law provides that when benefits are provided or will be provided to a beneficiary under the Medi-Cal program because of an injury for which another person or insurance carrier is liable, the Director of Health Care Services may recover from that person or carrier the reasonable value of benefits so provided. Existing law establishes a workers' compensation system, administered by the Administrative Director of the Division of Workers' Compensation, to compensate an employee for injuries sustained in the course of his or her employment. Existing law provides that a person or public or private entity who is not a party to a claim for workers' compensation benefits may not obtain individually identifiable information, as defined, that is obtained or maintained by the Division of Workers' Compensation of the Department of Industrial Relations on that claim, except as specified. This bill would, until January 1, 2017, authorize the State Department of Health Care Services to obtain and use individually identifiable information for the purposes of seeking recovery of Medi-Cal costs incurred by the state for treatment provided to injured workers that should have been incurred by employers and insurance carriers pursuant to the above-described authority of the Director of Health Care Services to recover the value of the benefits for which another person or carrier is liable. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.