Third, even in the states that have established specific consumer protections, the details of these protections vary significantly from state to state. The laws that provide access to emergency rooms are an excellent case in point. A majority of states have enacted a provision addressing some aspect of access to emergency services, but the provisions are by no means uniform from state to state. In fact, the very definition of what constitutes an emergency differs depending on what state you are in. Some states, for example, do not specify whether severe pain may indicate the presence of an emergency situation.
States deal with emergency post-stabilization care differently.
States often require plans to pay for emergency services necessary to stabilize a patient but require doctors to contact the plan directly to gain authorization for post-stabilization care. States may even require health plans to provide 24-hour access to plan personnel who can authorize continued care following stabilization of the patient. But in some of those states, requests for post-stabilization treatment approval that receive no response within a specified time period are automatically approved. Other states, however, impose no time restraints on how long a plan can take to respond to a request for post-stabilization care and do not automatically approve care despite the plan's failure to respond. Another area demonstrating the variability of state consumer protection laws is the one relating to external or independent reviews of health service denials.