About Us

The Coalition Against Surprise Medical Billing represents leading employer groups, unions, health insurance providers, and the tens of millions of people they employ and serve each day. Together, we support comprehensive protections for Americans against surprise medical bills, including

■ Ensuring that as implementation continues, the No Surprises Act regulations remain in place to serve patients and end the practice of out-of-network providers sending surprise medical bills – while also lowering costs.

■ Maintaining fair and market-based payments for out-of-network care.

■ Reducing Americans’ health insurance premiums and taxpayers’ costs by avoiding an arbitration process that adds unnecessary cost, delay, and red tape to the health system.

By the Numbers: Surprise Medical Billing

■ 9 million in 9 months: The No Surprises Act protected Americans from 9 million surprise medical bills in the first 9 months of implementation – about 1 million surprise medical bills a month.

■ 14x: Between April 15, 2022, and March 31, 2023, disputing parties initiated over 334,000 disputes through the federal arbitration portal – nearly 14 times greater than the Departments initially estimated.

■ 23%: Five states represented 60% of all disputes initiated in Q4 2022, with 23% of all disputes coming from Texas.

■ 71%: The top 10 parties initiated 71% of arbitration disputes, yet there were more than 300 unique initiating parties. This signals potential abuse or misuse of arbitration by the 10 parties generating 71% of disputes.

■ 600% fee increase: CMS increased the administrative fee for initiating arbitration in 2023 from $50 to $350 per dispute, resulting in higher costs for patients and signaling abuse or overuse of arbitration.

■ 20+: The 20+ lawsuits filed against the No Surprises Act, implementing regulations & decisions by Independent Dispute Resolution entities are likely to increase costs and wrap the system in even more red tape.

■ 74% of voters: A strong majority of voters (74%) are concerned that lawsuits from some physician and hospital organizations could delay or overturn the patient protections in the No Surprises Act – including a majority of Democratic, Republican, and independent voters with employer-provided coverage.

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