Establishing the Honorable Peter V. Kocot Act to enhance access to high quality, affordable and transparent healthcare in the Commonwealth

What it means

This House Ways and Means version of a health care bill, named the Honorable Peter V. Kocot Act, changes rules on health care costs, prices and access. It brings drug makers and pharmacy benefit managers into the state's health cost reviews, lets the Health Policy Commission require improvement plans when contract prices reflect unwarranted factors, and sets civil penalties of up to $500,000, $750,000 and $1,000,000 for a first, second and later finding that an entity knowingly failed to provide or falsified required information. It sets a one-time surcharge on certain large acute hospitals, based on $120,000,000, and on surcharge payors, based on $330,000,000, for the Community Hospital Reinvestment Trust Fund. It also sets rules for telemedicine, requires out-of-network providers to disclose their status and get written consent at least 24 hours ahead, licenses urgent care centers and office-based surgery facilities, and has a state center review scope-of-practice proposals.

Source: official text and history of H.4617 on malegislature.gov. This describes the bill text posted there; amendments may have changed the version that was voted on.