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
ICYMI: How Private Equity Is Gaming the No Surprises Act
Researchers at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reform recently analyzed new data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) detailing arbitration outcomes from all of 2023 under the No Surprises Act. While the law has been effective...
Four Key Takeaways from the Latest No Surprises Act Data
Researchers from the Brookings Institution recently analyzed the latest data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) detailing arbitration outcomes under the No Surprises Act (NSA). The analysis reviews Q3 and Q4 2024 outcomes as an update to their...
CASMB Submits Comments to DOJ, FTC, and HHS on Private Equity’s Impact on the U.S. Health Care System
The Coalition Against Surprise Medical Billing (CASMB) recently submitted comments to the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to a request for information (RFI) to better...
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Tell Washington it’s time to protect patients from surprise and unfair medical bills.