Stop Surprise Medical Bills
Despite the success of the No Surprises Act, certain private equity-backed providers and arbitration middlemen are systematically manipulating the law’s arbitration process — known as independent dispute resolution (IDR) — to extract maximum payments from employers and patients. This ongoing misuse and abuse of the process—continued surges in arbitration filings, sky-high final payments that overwhelmingly favor providers, and growing use of third-party IDR firms—is raising alarms about the consequences for consumer premiums and health care affordability.
Our Mission
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- Protect patients and families from surprise medical bills sent by out-of-network providers.
- Maintain fair and equitable payments for providers with a benchmark standard based on local, competitive market-based rates.
- Help reduce consumers’ health insurance premiums and taxpayers’ costs by avoiding an arbitration process that adds unnecessary cost, delay and bureaucracy to the health system and is particularly harmful for smaller companies.
The Problem
Surprise medical billing—also known as “balance billing”—made it harder for patients to afford necessary medical care, often when they least expect it. Now, with patient protections in place, certain private equity-backed providers and profit-enhancing middlemen are using the arbitration process as a business model to extract profits. This aggressive, profit-driven use of the arbitration process not only inflates costs, but it also undermines the intended goals of the No Surprises Act: to make care more affordable and accessible for patients.
Role of Private Equity
The Solution
Everyone in America deserves affordable, high-quality health coverage and care. Surprise medical bills undermine that promise, threatening the health and financial stability of millions of patients each year. Together, we must ensure patients are protected from excessive costs and empowered to make informed choices.
Latest News
Private Equity’s New Bait-and-Switch on Surprise Billing
As the Biden Administration moves forward with implementation of the No Surprises Act, out-of-network providers and private equity firms are pushing to create new loopholes that would raise costs for consumers and families. Groups representing emergency room...
Georgetown / Commonwealth Fund: Are Surprise Billing Payments Likely to Lead to Inflation in Health Spending?
By Jack Hoadley & Kevin Lucia “The federal No Surprises Act protects consumers from 'surprise' bills from out-of-network providers and also establishes a method to determine how much insurers will pay those providers. Establishing payment is critical to ensuring...
Coalition Statement on the ‘No Surprises Act’
Washington, D.C. - The Coalition Against Surprise Medical Billing issued the following statement on the final surprise billing provisions included as part of the No Surprises Act: “Despite out-of-network providers and private equity firms trying once again to...
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Tell Washington it’s time to protect patients from surprise and unfair medical bills.