ACR Attends Senate Roundtable on Surprise Billing

The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Republican staff hosted a surprise billing roundtable June 29 with healthcare provider groups. The American College of Radiology® (ACR®), joined other medical specialty organizations, including the American Medical Association (AMA), American Hospital Association (AHA) and representatives from the air ambulances.

Committee staff sought feedback regarding how to improve implementation of the No Surprises Act (NSA), legislation passed to protect patients from surprise medical bills. Since its enactment in January 2022, regulations issued to implement the legislation have created substantial challenges for physicians attempting to utilize the independent dispute resolution (IDR) process to resolve payment disputes with insurers.

This is the second roundtable ACR staff participated in to provide feedback about the lack of transparency surrounding the IDR process, difficulties with batching claims and imposition of a 600% fee increase to dispute payment decisions, essentially making IDR inaccessible to radiologists.

The HELP Committee will use this information to engage the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to remedy issues surrounding the NSA regulations.

For questions, contact Ashley Walton, ACR Director of Government Relations.