Which statement about the daily change-of-physician timeline is true?

• A. 5 Calendar days
• B. 5 Working days
• C. 10 Calendar days
• D. 10 Working days

Answer: (B)

The key idea here is how quickly a plan must complete a requested change in the treating physician. In California SIP scenarios, the rule is five working days. This means once a member asks to switch physicians, the plan should finalize the change and have the new physician on board within five business days, counting only days when the office is open and excluding weekends and holidays.

Why this matters: using working days keeps the clock fair and predictable, since weekends and holidays aren’t practical for processing, scheduling, and notifying all parties involved. A five-day window is short enough to ensure timely access to care while giving the plan time to coordinate records, approvals, and communications.

If you think about it with an example: a change request submitted on Monday would be expected to be completed by Friday, provided there are no holidays. This avoids unnecessary delays that could occur if weekends counted or if the timeline were longer, like ten days.