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In the fifth week of the 2024 Legislative Session, the Senate passed Senate Bill 2140, the Mississippi Prior
Authorization Reform Act, which seeks to improve the process through which some medical procedures
must be approved and certain medications are obtained.
The bill would require insurance companies to reduce bureaucratic red tape and get prior authorization
done more timely for the sake of a patient’s health and well-being. It would in part, require insurers to
allow an equally qualified physician to determine the necessity of a procedure instead of office workers
or physicians whose specialty lacks specific knowledge of the patient’s health needs.
Other changes the bill seeks include:
• Prohibiting health insurance companies from denying a claim for failure to obtain prior
authorization if the prior authorization requirement was not in effect on the date the patient
received the services.
• Require insurers to identify on their websites, certain prior authorization statistics.
• Require insurers to make available a standardized electronic prior authorization request
transaction process by January 1, 2025.
• Require insurers to occasionally review its prior authorization requirements and to consider
removal of the requirements in certain case.
The Senate passed a Rules Committee calendar that included Senate Concurrent Resolution 509
extending recognition to United States Senator Cindy Hyde Smith as the first woman elected to
represent Mississippi in Washington, D.C. Hyde-Smith served as state Senator from 2000-12, then
became state Commissioner of Agriculture before being appointed by then Governor Bryant to
Congress, where she has been re-elected.
Both items await House consideration.
Organizational meetings occurred through the week and committees continue to discuss legislation as
Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann has assigned 200 bills to committees.
The Madison Central High School Choir performed in the second floor Capitol rotunda on Tuesday,
January 30, 2024, as part of Lt. Governor Hosemann’s continued tradition.
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