In a new letter to the Biden Administration, the Coalition Against Surprise Medical Billing expressed their strong support for the No Surprises Act, underscoring the importance of full implementation of the law to prioritize patients over profits. In the letter, the group urged the Biden Administration to use their full authority in ensuring full and faithful implementation of the No Surprises Act.
The letter follows a recent decision in Texas Medical Association v. HHS that could weaken the safeguards meant to protect American families from high-cost out-of-network bills. Ensuring implementation of the No Surprises Act will prevent certain health care providers, particularly those backed by private-equity firms, from taking advantage of patients to expand their own profits.
Highlights from the letter include:
- “When the No Surprises Act was passed, it was a landmark bipartisan achievement that promised to have broad effects on our entire health care system – lowering national health care spending while also correcting the market failure that enabled certain physicians and hospitals to profit off surprise billing patients.”
- “The recent decision by a single district court judge in Texas threatens to undermine, at a national level, a critical component of the Act by weakening the well-reasoned rules issued by your Departments. The rules, which are already effective, go a long way toward successfully implementing the law and correcting an underlying market failure.”
- “As was true prior to the lawsuits, nothing about recent legal activity diminishes the importance of a fair, predictable independent dispute resolution (IDR) process that reduces – rather than increases – health care costs. In any IDR proceeding under the No Surprises Act, the first consideration written into statute remains the qualifying payment amount – an objective, quantifiable demonstration of fair market payments for health care services by the same specialty in the same local geographic region.”
- “American consumers stand to lose the most from changes to the rules undercut guardrails for arbitrators. Without these guardrails, features of the law that were also weighed carefully by Congress such as negotiation and contracting are discouraged, and providers will be more likely to use the federal IDR process to obtain unwarranted higher out-of-network payments.”
- “Working families cannot be burdened with more inflation. Altering surprise billing rules in favor of private-equity backed hospitals and provider groups would result in just that – preventable inflation. We applaud the Biden-Harris Administration for their commitment throughout this process to prioritizing consumers and strongly urge you to hold steady in your approach to ending surprise medical billing in a manner that reduces health care costs.”
To view the full letter, click here.
###
Recent Comments