Dear Leader McConnell, Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy,
The undersigned organizations appreciate the need to address the issue of surprise billing. With
memberships dedicated to providing safe and effective high-quality health care to patients, we
believe that legislative solutions to address surprise billing must protect patients by holding them
harmless and out of the middle of any billing disputes. We are committed to collaborating with
you to find a federal solution that addresses this issue in a comprehensive way that does not
compromise access to care through unintended consequences.
Legislative solutions must also improve network adequacy, promote transparency, create a fair
mechanism to address insurer and physician payment disputes, and ensure high quality care. We
are hopeful that surprise billing solutions will encompass these provisions.
However, we have significant concerns regarding surprise billing proposals that promote hospital
bundled billing and so-called “network matching”. Bundled billing is administratively complex
to implement, is untested in this context, and would require significant government intervention.
Importantly, it would also change the relationship between hospitals and providers, threatening
the independent practice of medicine.
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