A bill intended to protect patients from a harmful insurance practice known as ‘step therapy’ has been signed into law by Governor Kevin Stitt.

Senate Bill 509, authored by Rep. Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, and Sen. Dave Rader, R-Tulsa, requires any health insurance plan that utilizes a step therapy protocol to establish guidelines governing the use of the step therapy protocol using clinical practice guidelines. When a health insurance plan restricts prescription drug coverage pursuant to a step therapy protocol, the insurance provider must provide a process for a step therapy exception.

“Today is a great day for Oklahoma families and patients,” said Jenniafer Walters, executive director of the Epilepsy Foundation of Oklahoma. “A chronic illness is challenging enough, without having to jump through unnecessary hoops. This bill will eliminate complicated and unnecessary steps that are too often placed in a patient’s path.”

The Oklahoma legislation does not ban the practice of step therapy; instead, it makes the process more transparent and allows medical providers to exempt patients from the protocol under a set of strict criteria.

Oklahoma joins more than 22 other states across the country, including Texas and New Mexico, which have passed similar legislation allowing health care providers to override the use of step therapy by an insurer under various exemptions.