California drafts rules to regulate emergency room payments

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration has moved to ban healthcare providers from billing patients for the cost of services above what their HMOs are willing to pay. The bills are the product of a protracted feud between insurers and healthcare providers, principally emergency room doctors, radiologists and anesthesiologists. Such doctors often work in hospitals but don't have contracts with the same health maintenance organizations that serve the hospitals. When the doctors believe the reimbursements they receive from insurers are too low, the providers send additional bills to patients for the difference.