The Texas Department of Insurance Division of Workers' Compensation is working on rules to enact new legislation that prevents injured employees from getting surprise medical bills after receiving medical treatment at military facilities.

The division said it asked lawmakers to look at the issue after seeing an increase in complaints from injured employees who were billed for medical care at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, a Level 1 trauma center.

Because of conflicting state and federal guidelines, the division said some workers' compensation insurance carriers applied state guidelines to deny bills or paid only a portion of the charges.

Because federal law requires military facilities to collect reimbursement on all billed charges, the remaining balance was sent to the injured employees. After 90 days, many debts were turned over to the U.S. Treasury Department for federal debt collection, and many times injured employees' tax refunds or Social Security benefits were garnished, the DWC said.

“When our data showed that injured employees were being billed thousands of dollars for services they received, a red flag went up,” said Cassie Brown, the workers' compensation commissioner of Texas. “The basic premise of workers' compensation insurance coverage in Texas is that injured employees receive benefits at no cost for compensable injuries and, in return, employers are protected from most lawsuits.”

Senate Bill 935 requires workers' comp insurance reimbursement rates for medical care provided at a federal treatment facility to be the same rate provided by federal regulations. It also clarifies that medical care provided at these facilities is exempt from state workers' compensation requirements involving billing and preauthorization.

The DWC said it's developing new rules to ensure these requirements are implemented.

Learn more: https://www.tdi.texas.gov/wc/rules/drafts.html.

Steven A. Meyerowitz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a law firm marketing communications consulting company. Meyerowitz is the Director of the Insurance Coverage Law Center and editor-in-chief of journals on insurance law, banking law, bankruptcy law, energy law, government contracting law, and privacy and cybersecurity law, among other subjects. Contact him at smeyerowitz@meyerowitzcommunications.com.