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
-
- 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
The Choice Facing Congress: Protect Private Equity, or Protect Patients
There’s no way around it: if Congress gives up on ending surprise medical billing, they’re choosing private equity firms over patients. For private equity-backed physician staffing firms, surprise medical bills aren’t an accident—they’re a key element of the business...
Coalition Statement on New CBO Score for H.R. 2328
September 19 (WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Following the release of the Congressional Budget Office’s latest estimates on the cost associated with an arbitration proposal included in H.R. 2328 – Reauthorizing and Extending America’s Community Health Act, the Coalition Against...
Why do docs and hospitals support arbitration? Hint: It’s not about protecting patients
Below is an excerpt from Axios Driving the news: 2 new government reports show how arbitration, one of the solutions being considered by Congress, works in theory and in the real world. New York created an arbitration process a few years ago, and doctors on average...
Take Action
Tell Washington it’s time to protect patients from surprise and unfair medical bills.