The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) The current regulatory responsibility for medical services is spread among many governmental entities including all of the following:
(1) The Medical Board of California.
(2) The Department of Managed Health Care.
(3) The State Department of Health Care Services.
(b) This overlapping jurisdiction has resulted in multiple and duplicative audits of many physician offices, additional expense and hiring of additional staff to respond to duplicate requests for medical records, and the review of confidential medical records by a growing number of governmental entities.
(c) In the interest of reducing the number of separate times various public and private agencies review confidential medical records, streamlining the regulatory process, and reducing the redundant reviews of the offices of physicians, it is the intent of the Legislature to coordinate, to the extent feasible, as many of these regulatory functions as possible.
(d) In addition to government audits of physician offices, numerous private entities also conduct reviews of physician offices.
(e) It is in the public interest to achieve ultimately a uniform system of private and public auditing of physician offices and, thus, streamline the process as much as possible.
(Amended by Stats. 2015, Ch. 190, Sec. 62. (AB 1517) Effective January 1, 2016.)