Today, the Biden Administration released final regulations to implement the No Surprises Act, which Congress passed last year to protect patients from surprise bills. Millions of patients receive surprise medical bills each year through no fault of their own, often exposing them to high out-of-pocket costs that are unaffordable. In light of this development, Erica Socker, Arnold Ventures’ Vice President of Health Care for Payor Reform, issued the following statement:
“We applaud the Administration’s continued effort to implement the bipartisan No Surprises Act to protect patients from the indefensible practice of surprise medical billing and to reduce health care costs. This final rule maintains the Administration’s strong approach to cost containment as Congress intended in drafting the law.
The law is already providing essential protections to consumers, preventing over 2 million potential surprise medical bills in the first two months of 2022 alone. And at a time when Americans are faced with inflation and rising costs, fully implementing the No Surprises Act in a way that lowers health care costs for families is more important than ever.
We appreciate that the final rule continues to place guardrails around the independent dispute resolution process to help make sure the law realizes its promise of reducing health care costs and limits the ability of providers who remain out of network and private equity firms to abuse the process and extract higher prices.
While the final rule represents an important step in solidifying these protections, efforts by special interests to weaken the law will continue. It is imperative that the Biden Administration continues working to provide strong enforcement and consumer education to ensure that no patient is forced to bear the burden of an expensive, unexpected medical bill.”
