Arkansas’ Any Willing Provider Law In Dispute

Jake Bleed for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazett writes a very interesting article on some developments in Arkansas on a state “any willing provider” (“AWP”) law: “Blue Cross hopes suit preempts new ruling.” According to the article, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield filed suit in federal court Tuesday asking for “a judicial determination” on how a U.S. Supreme Court decision in April might affect the state’s “any willing provider” law. The case referred to is the U.S. Supreme Court case of Kentucky Association of Health Plans v. Miller (discussed previously in posts which you can access here) which held that Kentucky’s AWP law was not preempted by ERISA. According to the article, the Arkansas AWP law had been barred from being enforced by a federal appeals court in 1998, which concluded that it ran contrary to ERISA. However, with the recent Supreme Court case holding that a Kentucky law was not preempted by ERISA, certain providers have written to Blue Cross, demanding access to the plans’ network and citing the Supreme Court case as authority for the proposition that the Arkansas law should be enforced. The case being filed is an attempt by Blue Cross to resolve the dispute.