Health care service plans: physician to enrollee ratios.

Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care and makes a willful violation of the act a crime. Existing law requires a health care service plan to ensure that there is at least one full-time equivalent primary care physician for every 2,000 enrollees and authorizes the assignment of up to an additional 1,000 enrollees, as specified, to a primary care physician for each full-time equivalent nonphysician medical practitioner, as defined, supervised by that physician. Under existing law, these provisions repeal on January 1, 2019. This bill would delete the repeal date, thereby continuing operation of these provisions indefinitely. By extending the operation of these requirements, the willful violation of which would be a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.