A Market-Based Approach to End Surprise Billing
As policymakers look to put an end to surprise medical billing, there is growing recognition that a fair benchmark standard based on local rates of care is the best way to ensure fair and equitable treatment for health care providers, consumers, employers, and taxpayers. A local benchmark standard would align out-of-network payments to existing local, in-network market rates, which are especially important for small and rural hospitals that play such a vital role for the families they serve. Check out the resources below to learn more about why a local benchmark is the best way to solve surprise medical bills.
Leading Consumer Organizations, Employer Groups and Policy Experts Applaud Consumer Protections Included in Latest Surprise Billing Regulations
Two of the primary goals of the No Surprises Act were to protect patients from surprise medical bills and to lower health care costs for all consumers. The key to achieving both of those priorities require common-sense patient protections that would curtail market...
Private Equity’s New Bait-and-Switch on Surprise Billing
As the Biden Administration moves forward with implementation of the No Surprises Act, out-of-network providers and private equity firms are pushing to create new loopholes that would raise costs for consumers and families. Groups representing emergency room...
Employers, Unions and Health Insurance Providers: Surprise Billing Reforms Can’t Be A Gift To Private Equity
In a new letter to Congressional leadership, members of the Coalition Against Surprise Medical Billing urged policymakers to prioritize critical “changes to the current bill that would lower costs for consumers, employers and taxpayers.” Highlights are included below:...
What Is Congress Waiting For?
In a new national poll, nearly 9 in 10 voters support Congress passing legislation that would protect patients from surprise medical bills. More than three-quarters (79%) support policy solutions that would ban all providers from sending a surprise bill and align...
New National Poll Shows Overwhelming Majority of Voters Want Congress To Take Action on Surprise Medical Bills, Lower Costs for Patients
Washington, D.C. – After private equity firms blocked critical surprise billing protections for American patients last year, the overwhelming majority of voters — roughly 90 percent — want Congress to pass legislation that would protect more than 100 million Americans...
Op-ed: Surprise Medical Bills Increase Costs for Everyone, Not Just For The People Who Get Them
By Erin Duffy, Erin Trish, Loren Adler, USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy "Too often after a hospital procedure or visit to an emergency room patients get hit with unexpected bills from out-of-network doctors they had no role in choosing. These...
Want to Lower Premiums for Millions of Americans? Ending Surprise Medical Billing Will Do Just That
When out-of-network providers and private equity firms take advantage of patients, we all pay the price. Now, new research from the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy shows clearly how this exploitative practice ends up costing the country billions...
Kaiser Health News: With No Legal Guardrails for Patients, Ambulances Drive Surprise Medical Billing
By Laura Ungar "School librarian Amanda Brasfield bent over to grab her lunch from a small refrigerator and felt her heart begin to race. Even after lying on her office floor and closing her eyes, her heart kept pounding and fluttering in her chest. The school nurse...
ProPublica: A Doctor Went To His Own Employer For A COVID-19 Antibody Test. It Cost +$10,000.
By Marshall Allen When Dr. Zachary Sussman went to Physicians Premier ER in Austin for a COVID-19 antibody test, he assumed he would get a freebie because he was a doctor for the chain. Instead, the free-standing emergency room charged his insurance company an...
New York Times: A Hospital Forgot to Bill Her Coronavirus Test. It Cost Her $1,980.
By Sarah Kliff As Congress moves to address one of the most devastating public health crises facing the country, patients, consumers and families continue to be slammed with surprise medical bills related to COVID-19 care and treatment. The latest New York Times piece...