S 940: Requires all insurance policies and health maintenance organization contracts to provide coverage for maternity patients and their newborns for hospital stays of at least 48 hours following childbirth by natural delivery and 96 hours following childbirth by caesarean section; provides such coverage for patients who are recipients of medicaid.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 940 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN SENATE (Prefiled) January 8, 2025 ___________ Introduced by Sen. SANDERS -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Health AN ACT to amend the social services law, in relation to establishing mandatory minimum medicaid coverage for hospital confinement for childbirth The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. Section 365-a of the social services law is amended by 2 adding a new subdivision 6-a to read as follows: 3 6-a. (a) Medical assistance shall also include inpatient hospital 4 coverage for mother and for newborn for at least forty-eight hours after 5 childbirth for any delivery other than a caesarean section, and for at 6 least ninety-six hours after a caesarean section. 7 (b) Maternity care coverage shall also include, at a minimum, parent 8 education, assistance and training in breast or bottle feeding, and the 9 performance of any necessary maternal and newborn clinical assessments. 10 (c) A mother shall have the option to be discharged earlier than the 11 time periods established in paragraph (a) of this subdivision. In such 12 case, the inpatient hospital coverage must include at least one home 13 care visit, which shall be in addition to, rather than in lieu of, any 14 home health care coverage otherwise available. The medical assistance 15 program must cover the home care visit which may be requested at any 16 time within forty-eight hours of the time of delivery (ninety-six hours 17 in the case of a caesarean section) and shall be delivered within twen- 18 ty-four hours, (i) after discharge, or (ii) of the time of the mother's 19 request, whichever is later. 20 § 2. This act shall take effect on the one hundred eightieth day after 21 it shall have become a law. EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD03095-01-5