Surprise Medical Bill Prevention is Part of Year-End Legislative Package

Surprise Medical Bill Prevention is now part of the year-end legislative package two years of negotiation. Lawmakers are set to vote over the bill on Monday.

More help is on the way for millions of Americans most especially in this time of the global pandemic.

After two years of negotiations, lawmakers have finally included the "Surprise Medical Bill Prevention" in the year-end legislative package.

Surprise medical bill is costing Americans millions

The Surprise Medical Bill Prevention has strong bipartisan support from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the House of Congress. Lawmakers are about to vote for it on Sunday.

This bill protects millions of Americans from getting bills in situations like going to the emergency room and getting care from a doctor who is not covered by the patient's insurance plan, according to The Hill.

Lawmakers from both parties have been pushing for this solution for months after they found out that most of the American patients received surprising medical bills amounting to thousands of dollars.

Lawmakers said that this is a terrible practice that Congress should solve. However, it took lawmakers two years before they were able to include it as part of the legislation, as reported by The Washington Post.

Powerful health care industry groups, including doctors, hospitals, and insurers jockeyed on how much patients will pay once they will be taken out from the hospital.

Impact of surprise medical bill prevention

Consumer groups and unions have touted that this bill will help patients and the government to save more money once it's signed into law.

However, some doctors and hospitals said that this will be a big blow for them because this will lead to damaging cuts to their payments.

This measure will use a process known as arbitration to determine how much the insurer will pay the doctor. This is a shift from the previous process where hospitals or doctors set the payment rate based on the median rate in that geographic area.

According to Politico, this year-end legislation could have the support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who have long been demanded for this bill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the House of Representatives also support this, saying on Sunday night, "We're very proud that surprise billing is a part of this."

Meanwhile, CEO of the American Heart Association Nancy Brown praised the deal and said, "Patients nationwide have been waiting for years for legal protection from financially devastating surprise bills, and now relief is in sight."

Leif Murphy, CEO of TeamHealth said that this agreement will benefit the patients. It can be remembered that TeamHealth has been among the companies at the center of controversy over surprise billing.