I’ve received a lot of questions about the No Surprises Act in response to my two previous posts: Preparing for Some Surprises in the No Surprises Act and Balancing the Unknowns of Healthcare Billing with the No Surprises Act. So, I wanted to share a few resources that we have found particularly useful.
1. No Surprises Act Implementation: What to Expect in 2022
This post from the Kaiser Family Foundation provides an excellent overview of the law, specific requirements for providers and payers, and how the No Surprises Act requirements will be enforced. You’ll also find some useful stats about the incidence of surprise billing by diagnosis and admission type, and patients’ past experience with surprise bills. Lastly, there is a good discussion at the end of this post about the implications of the Act on future policy and how the law may evolve.
2. Surprise Medical Bills: New Protections for Consumers Take Effect in 2022
This post, also from the Kaiser Family Foundation, is a detailed description of the consumer protections afforded by the No Surprises Act as well as provider requirements. It also discusses some of the key implementation issues expected to arise as the law gets put into effect.
3. Understanding the No Surprises Act
This is a deep dive analysis of the law presented by the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy. It discusses the key healthcare market dynamics which led to the law, the breadth of protection for consumers, and the specific mechanics of determining insurer payments for out-of-network services. There is also a detailed discussion of how the federal law will interact with existing state Surprise Billing laws, which has been a concern for many providers.
4. No Surprises Act Guidance for Health Plans and Insurers - A Legal Perspective
This article from Thomson Reuters looks at the No Surprises Act from a legal perspective and provides advice for both health plans and insurers.
It's hard to predict the full impact of the No Surprises Act at this point, but these articles help assess the different aspects of the law, what it means for providers, and how it might impact the healthcare industry going forward.