There’s a bill for that. The bipartisan Senate Bill 88 would require a health plan to give notice whenever it bumps a physician or other health care provider out of its network of covered providers. Among its other provisions, the measure also would require health plans to develop and disclose criteria they use to include, exclude and dump doctors and other providers from their networks.

SB 88 – sponsored in the upper chamber by state Sens. Angela Williams, D-Denver, and Chris Holbert, R-Parker –  just passed the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee on a 5-2 vote and now heads to the Appropriations Committee.

Here’s a press statement released on the bill by the Senate GOP:

SB-88…will help improve health network transparency by requiring that certain networks offer notice as to how and why such changes are made. At present, most patients and doctors impacted by such “de-selection” decisions are left completely in the dark.

“We believe that patients and care providers who are forced to part ways when a health network narrows are at least owed advance notification of those changes from the insurer, along with an explanation of why such changes are necessary,” said Holbert. “Because as it stands now, the lack of answers when a network narrows or a doctor is de-selected from such a network just adds insult to injury for the patients and care providers involved.”