Bill would let ambulances transport patients to urgent care and behavioral-health centers, insurers to cover transports

House Bill 1864 would allow ambulance services to transport patients to facilities other than hospital emergency departments when those destinations are authorized in regional care plans and would require insurers, ERISA-exempt plans and Medicaid to cover such transports.

Committee staff explained that regional care plans already permit transports to certain facilities and that HB 1864 explicitly adds non-emergency settings such as urgent care clinics and behavioral-health crisis centers to the list of authorized destinations. For private health plans and Medicaid the bill would require coverage; the bill also adds behavioral-health and non-ED medical facility transports to provisions governing certain public-plan reimbursements.

Proponents said the change would reduce emergency-department crowding and give first responders more appropriate destinations…