The department should also require that claim decisions rely on accepted medical standards and ensure that any claim reviews made with help from artificial intelligence-based systems are full and fair, the council said.

Earlier this year, the council noted in a statement that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act claim procedure regulations already require plan fiduciaries to provide for a full and fair review of any claim denial.

The council suggested that studies by KFF and other organizations show that plan participants are filing too few appeals and may not understand how to file appeals.

The Labor Department regulates employers' self-insured health plans through the Employee Benefits Security Administration.

The American Medical Association has asked the Labor Department to require plans to approve requests for prior authorizations for urgently needed care within 24 hours.

Related: Self-insured health plan prior authorization programs are demoralizing for physicians, AMA says

The current regulations require plans to review urgent requests within 72 hours.

The ERISA Advisory Council took a middle course, by asking that plans rule on urgent claims in less than 72 hours when that's possible.

The AMA has also asked the Labor Department to require plans to pay for any procedures that were already vetted through prior approval processes, and the advisory council agreed with that position.

Health care providers, patients and patient advocacy groups have blasted health plan denials of requests for prior authorization of care and claims in recent months.

Health plans, insurers and plan administrators have argued that claim review and appeal processes may be too complicated for patients to understand and may need to be improved, but they have also argued that plans need to have ways to verify that patients are getting appropriate care, that claims are consistent with plan requirements and that a provider is not submitting multiple claims for the same care.

Karin Peters, the president of National Employee Benefits Administrators, a benefit plan administrator, and Ivelisse Berio LeBeau, NEBA's general counsel, told the council in a comment submitted in September that claim appeal rates may be low partly because most claim reviews go smoothly and patients agree with the results.

"In NEBA's experience, the vast majority of health benefit claims are adjudicated and processed and paid as appropriate under plan terms," Peters and LeBeau wrote. "In NEBA's experience denied health plan claims represent a small minority of the total volume of processed health benefit plan claims."