OFFICE OF FISCAL ANALYSIS
Legislative Office Building, Room 5200
Hartford, CT 06106 (860) 240-0200
http://www.cga.ct.gov/ofa
sSB-683
AN ACT CONCERNING HOSPITAL BILLING AND COLLECTION
EFFORTS BY HOSPITALS AND COLLECTION AGENCIES.
AMENDMENT
LCO No.: 9102
File Copy No.: 447
Senate Calendar No.: 279
Primary Analyst: JS 5/25/21
Contributing Analyst(s): ()
OFA Fiscal Note
State Impact:
Agency Affected Fund-Effect FY 22 $ FY 23 $
UConn Health Ctr. Various -
Revenue Loss
None See Below
Note: Various=Various
Municipal Impact: None
Explanation
The amendment strikes the underlying bill and its associated fiscal
impact.
The amendment, which affects collections for hospitals and entities
affiliated with them among other aspects, is anticipated to result in a
loss of net patient revenue to the UConn Health Center, beginning in FY
23. As the relevant sections of the amendment are effective beginning
October 1, 2022, the FY 23 revenue loss is anticipated to be three-
quarters of the annual revenue loss. The amount of the annual revenue
loss is uncertain for the reasons described below.
Section 1 extends an existing limitation on hospital collections from
uninsured patients to include entities affiliated with a hospital, such as
UConn Health's University Medical Group (UMG). Currently, UConn
Health's affiliated entities provide uninsured patients or other self-pay 2021SB-00683-R00LCO09102-FNA.DOCX Page 2 of 3
patients with a 40 percent discount. Therefore, the extent of revenue
loss from this provision, if any, depends on the difference between the
current discounted price and the limit, which is the cost of providing the
health care. Among all Connecticut residents, approximately six
percent are uninsured, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
1
Section 2 makes several changes specific to hospital and affiliated
entity bills that have been unpaid and sent to collections. One such
change prohibits the reporting of any patient with an unpaid bill, to a
credit rating agency, before a year has passed since the patient first
received a bill. Currently, UConn Health and its entities send unpaid
bills to a collection agency for assistance between approximately 70 days
and several months. UConn Health reports that FY 19 annual revenues
from such collections were approximately $1 million, and that the
likelihood of receiving payment declines as time passes. To the extent
that sending unpaid patient bills to collections cannot be de-coupled
from reporting these patients to a credit rating agency, and
consequently more time must pass before bills are sent to collections,
then UConn Health will experience a revenue loss of less than $1 million
annually.
The amendment's other billing and collections changes are not
anticipated to have a fiscal impact to UConn Health, as they either
reflect current practice or can be accomplished with existing resources.
Section 5, which requires the Office of Health Strategy to conduct a
study regarding mergers and acquisitions of physician practices, along
with methods to ensure the viability of such practices, results in no fiscal
impact as the office has the staff expertise to handle this requirement.
1
"Health Insurance Coverage of the Total Population, 2019," Kaiser Family
Foundation. Accessed April 13, 2021 at: https://www.kff.org/other/state-
indicator/total-
population/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%
22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D 2021SB-00683-R00LCO09102-FNA.DOCX Page 3 of 3
The preceding Fiscal Impact statement is prepared for the benefit of the members of the General Assembly, solely
for the purposes of information, summarization and explanation and does not represent the intent of the General
Assembly or either chamber thereof for any purpose. In general, fiscal impacts are based upon a variety of
informational sources, including the analyst’s professional knowledge. Whenever applicable, agency data is
consulted as part of the analysis, however final products do not necessarily reflect an assessment from any
specific department.