As used in this article:

(1) "Emergency medical care" means those health care services provided in a hospital emergency facility to evaluate and treat an emergency medical condition.

(2) "Emergency medical condition" means a medical condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity, including severe pain, such that a prudent layperson who possesses an average knowledge of health and medicine could reasonably expect the absence of immediate medical attention to result in:

(a) placing the health of the individual, or with respect to a pregnant woman, the health of the woman or her unborn child, in serious jeopardy;

(b) serious impairment to bodily functions; or

(c) serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.

(3) "Emergency medical provider" means hospitals licensed by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, hospital-based services, physicians licensed by the State Board of Medical Examiners, and oral surgeons and dentists licensed by the State Board of Dentistry who provide emergency medical care.

(4) "Managed care organization" means a licensed insurance company, a hospital or medical services plan contract, a health maintenance organization, or any other entity which is subject to regulation by the department and which operates a managed care plan.

(5) "Managed care plan" means a plan operated by a managed care organization which provides for the financing and delivery of health care and treatment services to individuals enrolled in the plan through its own employed health care providers or contracting with selected specific providers that conform to explicit selection standards, or both. A managed care plan also customarily has a formal organizational structure for continual quality assurance, a certified utilization review program, dispute resolution, and financial incentives for individual enrollees to use the plan's participating providers and procedures.

HISTORY: 1998 Act No. 326, Section 1; 2016 Act No. 172 (H.5100), Section 1, eff May 12, 2016.

Effect of Amendment

2016 Act No. 172, Section 1, in (3), inserted reference to oral surgeons and dentists.