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
Do They Or Don’t They? It Sure Looks Like Private Equity Firms Balance Bill Consumers
Recently, the private equity companies behind the most egregious surprise billing practices have tried to distance themselves from their bankrupting charges. They say they aren’t balance billing patients, but their actions suggest the exact opposite. We’ve been...
A Benchmark Is Already Working In The Largest State In The Country. California Lawmakers Want To See It Go Federal.
Three years after the passage of AB 72, California’s surprise billing law has proved that a fair, local, benchmark solution can stop surprise medical bills while improving health care affordability for hardworking families. Recently, the New York Times examined the...
New Polls Show Voters Want Congress to End Surprise Medical Billing
Two new polls from Families USA and Arnold Ventures confirm that voters want Congress to end surprise medical billing with reform that lowers healthcare costs for hardworking families. Key highlights from the Families USA poll are included below: More than 4 in 10...
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Tell Washington it’s time to protect patients from surprise and unfair medical bills.