This section applies to a health benefit plan regardless of its status as grandfathered or nongrandfathered.

(1) Each carrier and health plan must offer applicants, covered persons, and providers a way to resolve grievances.

(2) Each carrier must maintain a log or otherwise register grievances, and retain the log or record for three years. It must be available for review by the commissioner upon request. The log must provide sufficient detail to permit the commissioner to determine whether the carrier is administering its grievance process in accordance with the law, and in good faith, and to identify whether and in what manner the carrier adjusted practices or requirements in response to a grievance.

(3) Grievances are not adverse benefit determinations and do not establish the right to internal or external review of a carrier or health plan's resolution of the grievance.

(4) Nothing in this section prohibits a carrier from creating or using its own system to categorize the nature of grievances in order to collect data, if the system permits reporting of the data specified in subsection (2) of this section.