Prescription drug coverage.

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 provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law requires a health care service plan contract or health insurance policy that provides coverage for outpatient prescription drugs to cover medically necessary prescription drugs and subjects those policies to certain limitations on cost sharing and the placement of drugs on formularies. Existing law limits the maximum amount an enrollee or insured may be required to pay at the point of sale for a covered prescription drug to the lesser of the applicable cost-sharing amount or the retail price, and requires that payment to apply to the applicable deductible. This bill would require a health care service plan contract or health insurance policy issued, amended, delivered, or renewed on or after July 1, 2023, that provides prescription drug benefits and maintains one or more drug formularies to furnish specified information about a prescription drug upon request by an enrollee or insured, or their prescribing provider. The bill would require the plan or insurer to respond in real time to that request and ensure the information is current no later than one business day after a change is made. The bill would prohibit a health care service plan or health insurer from, among other things, restricting a prescribing provider from sharing the information furnished about the prescription drug or penalizing a provider for prescribing, administering, or ordering a lower cost or clinically appropriate alternative drug. Because a willful violation of these provisions by a health care service plan would be a crime, the 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.