What is surprise billing? Nancy Brown, CEO, American Heart Association says it is when patients unknowingly receive care from a doctor or another healthcare provider who is out of their insurance company’s network. Sometimes these bills happen in emergency situations when the patient is unable to choose their healthcare provider, their medical transport company, their hospital. She says patients often also receive surprise bills when they receive treatment from a provider on their healthcare team for example an anesthesiologist who assisted in the surgery and is out of network. In both cases patients are held responsible for the care not covered by their insurance, sometimes amounting to hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars throwing millions of Americans into financial crisis. Nancy says no one should have to worry about a surprise bill for a treatment or a test expected to be covered by insurance.
Nancy says the No Surprises Act will provide patients relief from surprise medical bills. On January 1st this new federal law called the No Surprises Act will take effect. Nancy says the law is a big step for protecting patients from the harmful practice of surprise billing. She says the No Surprises Act has one purpose and done purpose only; to take patients out of the middle of payment disputes and protect them from the devasting impact of unexpected medical bills. The act does this by preventing patients from receiving surprise bills for emergency care and other unforeseen out-of-network care. Nancy says we believe that the No Surprises Act must be strongly enforced to ensure patients are protected. She says we are calling on Congress and the Biden administration to protect patients by following through with tough rules and strong enforcement of the law.
What can we do if we find we have a surprise medical bill? Nancy says the most important thing we need your help with today is to join the American Heart Association in making sure that Congress and the Biden administration ensure that patients are protected with tough rules and strong enforcement of the No Surprises Act.
You can join the American Heart Association on this protection for patients of their surprise medical bills by texting SURPRISE to 46839.
