Breaking Barriers to Justice
The bill also changes the documentation required to recover lien-based medical expenses. Every medical bill must now be itemized using accepted healthcare billing standards, including CPT, HCPCS, ICD, or successor procedure codes. If a defendant contends the documentation is deficient, the statute provides a 30- day cure period after written notice, allowing the provider or plaintiff to supplement or clarify the records before the challenge becomes an issue in litigation. SB 623 addresses the practice of selling or financing medical liens. If a medical lien is sold, assigned, factored, or otherwise transferred, the maximum recoverable amount becomes the actual amount paid to acquire the lien, subject to the overall FAIR Health limitation. In addition, all agreements relating to lien sales or financing – including contingent or deferred payments – must be disclosed within 30 days and before settlement. Undisclosed assignments cannot later be asserted against defendants, insurers, or settlement proceeds. These provisions increase transparency while still ensuring access to care. In the same light of transparency, the bill's ethics provisions prohibit attorneys handling contingency fee matters from referring clients to healthcare providers in which the attorney or an immediate family member has a direct ownership interest. It also prohibits fee splitting, kickbacks, referral compensation, bonuses, or other financial incentives tied to referring clients for lien-based treatment. Attorneys likewise may not charge an additional contingency fee or administrative fee for negotiating or reducing medical liens. Violations may subject attorneys to State Bar discipline.
TNCs may obtain discovery regarding lien assignments, financing arrangements, referrals, ownership interests, compensation agreements, and other financial relationships relating to the treatment at issue. Providers may also be required to produce declarations stating whether the patient was referred by the attorney and approximately how many patients that attorney referred during the preceding 24 months. As a result, attorneys should expect increased transparency of referral practices and financial relationships. SB 623 also strengthens rideshare safety, the crux of CAOC’s sex assault counterinitiative. The bill requires annual criminal background checks for rideshare drivers, expands the categories of disqualifying criminal offenses (including additional sex offenses and assault-related crimes) and expressly authorizes women drivers and women passengers to request same-gender ride matches without violating California's anti-discrimination laws. Separately, California has also passed and signed AB 2155 (Aguiar-Curry), which expressly adds the federal prohibition on forced arbitration of sex assault and sex harassment claims to the California Arbitration Act. This aligns California with other states’ rideshare legislation that ensures victims of sex assault or harassment in TNCs can seek justice in court. Unlike Uber's proposed ballot initiative, the legislation does not impose contingency fee caps and does not limit recovery for past medical expenses in all automobile accident cases to 125% of the Medicare reimbursement rate. Instead, SB 623 enacted targeted rideshare-only reforms to lien-based treatment that preserves an injured victim’s ability to obtain medical care. At the same time, the statute demands greater transparency, ethical safeguards, and enhanced protections for rider safety.
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Consumer Attorneys of California
FORUM July/August 2026
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