Ohio Senate Financial Institutions, Insurance and Technology Committee - 3-25-2026

Chair Wilson.

Vice Chair Lang.

Ranking Member Craig.

Senator Blessing.

Senator Chavez.

Senator DeMora.

Senator Liston.

Senator Manning.

The chair recognizes Senator Blessing with a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to accept Substitute Senate Bill 11-1011-4 as the working document.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The substitute bill promotes fairness and transparency, and it is the result of collaboration between the Ohio Association of Health Plans and the Ohio State Medical Association. The language amends the time frame of insurer takebacks from two years to one year, extends the provider appeal window from 30 days to 60 days, and establishes an electronic method of notification when agreed upon by the insurer and provider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Members of the committee, Monica Hickel, Vice President of Advocacy for OSMA. Just a quick recap on the sub bill that Senator Blessing just mentioned. We have been working for the past several months with the Department of Insurance and the health plan to iron out some details of the bill to make sure that we get the provisions correct. The current law that we have, the take back time period, is a 24 month time period as we've brought forth to this committee before. 24 months is really hard fiscally for practices. They need to close out their fiscal year at the end of the year. so a 24-month look back to do an audit of a claim is really unworkable for practices. The original version of this bill made that time frame pretty tight. It was the same time frame that health plans give providers to submit claims, which is usually somewhere between 80 to 190 days. This gives it a 12-month time period, so we'll wrap up finances within the current fiscal year. We also sort of uncovered through the IP process on this bill that we actually didn't have anything in statute that determined the mechanism by which communication needed to occur when a take-back happened. Most communication between health plans and providers happen electronically. They're processing claims electronically. They're getting paid electronically. But what we uncovered was that when a take-back typically occurs, practices were getting sent a hard copy letter notifying them that a take-back had happened. That also doesn't really work with the current flow with a practice or a facility. So we put in the bill that if you are typically communicating electronically with a health plan and a provider, then you will communicate electronically when a clawback or a take-back has occurred. Because of that issue, we also extended the time frame to do an appeal from 30 days to 60 days, as Senator Blessing noted, just to give people more time. Again, with those hard copy letters, we realized that by the time most practices realized that they had a clawback, they were outside of that appeal window. So just kind of streamlining the whole process across the board. We are very thankful to the Department of Insurance for their feedback, to the health plans for their feedback, to Senator Blessing for working through the issues on this bill with us. We're excited to move it forward. The bill doesn just impact physicians but all providers in the health care space which is really great that we have a bill that can have universal support like that So with that I appreciate the committee accepting this sub and I happy to answer any questions anyone might have

The chair recognizes Senator Manning with a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to amend Amendment 1859-1.

Yes, thank you. By the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amendment specifies that there must be a written agreement with the executive director of the Ohio Emergency Management Association in order for the association to be considered the employer of an urban search and rescue team member for the purposes of the workers' compensation law. Additionally, the amendment corrects a cross-reference error.

Thank you, sir. I very much appreciate being able to come here today. I do have the document that will talk about what you guys were just referring to for my task force when we are deployed inside the state of Ohio. As this will say, we are also one of the FEMA urban search and rescue teams, and we have been deployed 19 times just since 2020. So we are getting used a lot by FEMA to go to disasters throughout the United States and stuff. So what we are trying to do here with Ohio is get the same type of coverage for our team members for an in-state Ohio deployment because Ohio is not, excuse me, we are not allowed to be used by FEMA for a disaster here in Ohio. The state, by federal law, has to use the task force in their state before they can reach out to FEMA and get other task forces to come to their state from FEMA. And so we cannot be a FEMA-activated task force for an event here in Ohio. And when in 2019, when the Dayton, Ohio, had four tornado events and one was a level four tornado that was quite bad, that we did get activated by Ohio EMA to go to that. So the document that we are hoping that will get passed by all of you guys so that we can get this new law, again, my name, Ohio Task Force One is one of the 28 teams nationwide within FEMA Urban Search and Rescue System. Since its establishment in 1996, Our team has brought together highly trained professionals from across Ohio, including firefighters, paramedics, physicians, structural engineers, hazardous material specialists, canine specialists, and technical search experts to respond to some of the most dangerous and complex emergencies in the entire United States. When disasters strike, whether natural or man-made, our members leave their full-time employment and families behind to deploy at a moment's notice. These deployments occur under the direction of FEMA when the disaster is in another state than Ohio, and the deployment occurs under the direction of the Ohio Emergency Management Agency when the disaster is in Ohio. deployments both ways often involve significant personnel risk under current federal law when Task Force One is deployed by FEMA responsibility for workers' compensation coverage is covered by the federal government's workers' comp as federal employees, even though deployed Ohio Task Force One team members are not federal employees in any way, and they do not get paid by FEMA or the federal government for a federal deployment. They still are paid by their participating agency or by the task force, depending on the type of team member. Under current law, when Task Force 1 is deployed within Ohio, responsibility for workers' compensation coverage falls to the individual responder's local government employer or to the team member's personal insurance. That's why we're trying to get this change to the FEMA one. This creates a document between who is directing the deployment and who is financially responsible for injuries or occupational illness. This structure can create uncertainty, administrative challenges, and potential disincentives for participation in statewide response efforts. Senate Bill 343 provides a clear and practical solution by establishing that members of a designated Ohio Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue Team are considered employees of the Ohio Emergency Management Agency for purposes of workers' compensation when deployed at the request of the state. This is the same way that Ohio Task Force One deployed team members as treated by FEMA's deployments. This legislation is about fairness, clarity, and readiness. First, protecting those who protect others. Members of the Task Force One operate in high-risk environments, collapsed structures, floodwaters, hazardous materials incidents, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear events. We do deploy to those and other life-threatening considerations. They deserve certainty that if they are injured in service to the state, they will be properly covered. Second, support local government and independent team members. Local jurisdictions and independents should not bear the financial burden for payments they do not control. Senate Bill 325 relieves that burden and ensures consideration across the state. Third, strengthening emergency response readiness, a clear and related workers' compensation framework, helps ensure continued participation in Task Force 1 and maintains high ability to respond quickly and effectively to disasters. Importantly, this bill has nominal fiscal impact. As notioned by the sponsor, Task Force One has only been deployed within Ohio once in the current history during the 2019 Dayton Air Tornado response. Senate Bill 343 is thoroughly targeted policy that ensures fairness and fiscal responses, clarity for local governments and accountability for state level and so the only thing I would finalize this tier is for Ohio Task Force One we have only two types of team members Those that come from an agency that is supporting them that called a participating agency And then there is somewhere 70 plus team members. Most of them are retired from their fire departments or agencies that they were with, but they wanted to stay with the task force. so they are now affiliated team members, and they are the ones I commented that would have to do their own personal insurance because they no longer have an employee putting them on the deployment.

Now I will shut up. Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Wilson, I would move to accept Substitute Bill 0954-7 as the working document. I'm sorry.

No, I said I move that we accept Substitute Bill 0954-7 as the working document.

Thank you, Chairman. The Substitute Bill accomplishes the following. Instead of categories in age by under 18 or over 18, the substitute bill will implement age bands of, for example, under 13 years old, at least 13 and under 16, at least 16 and under 18, and finally at least 18. The substitute bill requires age verification to occur at the operating system level rather than at the app store level. The substantive bill requires parental consent to share age signals, which gives parents the agency to decide if any applications receive the age information. The substantive bill will allow developers to use the developer age signal to indicate to the user's age if there is conflicting age information. This language does not have the same First Amendment concerns as the App Store Accountability Act. The concepts in this language have been received broad support, including from Meta, Snap, and Google. Lastly, LSE also has included a minor technical correction regarding definitions.