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
Getting to the Facts: What You Need To Know About Surprise Medical Billing
Surprise medical billing, or balance billing, is one of the pressing affordability challenges facing millions of Americans, including those who receive coverage through their employer. By addressing the underlying cost of unfair, exorbitant charges from certain...
Something Fishy: Out-of-Network Providers & Their Surprise Billing Red Herring
When it comes to ending surprise medical billing, we know that a fair benchmark standard based on local market rates is the best way to provide safeguards for patients and their families during health emergencies while ensuring that providers are reimbursed at a...
Fact Check: Protecting Patients’ Access to Quality, Affordable Care in Rural Communities
Out-of-network providers continue to exploit patients at their most vulnerable – even in cases where those patients made the effort to seek in-network care. A recent report from Kaiser Family Foundation found that the vast majority (90 percent) of inpatient stays for...
Take Action
Tell Washington it’s time to protect patients from surprise and unfair medical bills.