AHA yesterday commented on the No Surprises Act, bipartisan, bicameral legislation released Friday to address surprise medical bills.

“We strongly support provisions to protect the patient from surprise medical bills,” AHA wrote to leaders of the House Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor committees and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “Once the patient is protected, hospitals and health systems should be permitted to work with health plans to determine appropriate reimbursement, as is provided for in your bill. As you know, we strongly oppose approaches that would impose arbitrary rates on providers, which could have significant consequences far beyond the scope of surprise medical bills and impact access to hospital care, particularly in rural communities. However, we urge you to consider several modifications to the dispute resolution process to reduce burden on all parties and ensure fair consideration of offers.

“We also would like to commend you for not including in the legislation certain provisions extraneous to the surprise medical billing issue, such as those related to privately negotiated contracts, which would lead to narrower provider networks with fewer choices for patients. However, we have significant concerns with several of the provisions that would attempt to implement unworkable billing processes and transparency provisions that are duplicative and costly without clear added benefit for patients.

“Finally, we ask that any savings associated with this legislative initiative be directed to those providers that are on the front lines of treating COVID-19 patients, such as hospitals, physicians and nurses.”

Related News Articles

Headline
The Senate Appropriations Committee July 31 advanced the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services,…
Chairperson's File
Public
The recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act will bring big changes to health care. AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack joined me for a Leadership Dialogue…
Headline
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee yesterday voted 12-11 along party lines to recommend the confirmation of Brian Christine, M.D., to…
Chairperson's File
Public
This month Congress enacted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — a sweeping package that contained many of President Trump’s legislative priorities on taxes,…
Headline
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services July 15 issued a proposed rule that would increase Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system…
Headline
The AHA July 2 expressed support for the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act (H.R. 3890), bipartisan legislation that would add 14,000 Medicare-funded…