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
Morning Consult: Ending Surprise Billing Protects Patients and Honesty in Health Care
Most of us take great pains to ensure in advance that the doctors and hospitals we use are in network by our insurance plan. We assume that, when we go to an in-network hospital, that everyone who sees us, from the emergency room doctor to the radiologist who reads...
Coalition Expands Membership with Union, Employer Groups
Washington, D.C. – As part of a unified voice of employers, unions, patient and consumer groups as well as health plans calling for new federal safeguards, the Coalition Against Surprise Medical Billing welcomed UNITE HERE, National Business Group on Health, Pacific...
Leading Labor and Employer Groups Urge Congress to Advance a Fair, Market-Based Benchmark, Reject Proposals For Government-Mandated Arbitration
Joining a growing chorus of support for a fair, local, market-based approach to protect patients and families from surprise medical billing, more than 30 key employer and labor organizations are calling on Congress to address the market failure—fueled by a handful of...
Take Action
Tell Washington it’s time to protect patients from surprise and unfair medical bills.