Congress must fix the No Surprises Act before it bankrupts patients and employers

Summary: Five years ago, President Trump signed the No Surprises Act to stop unfair, huge medical bills from hitting patients out of nowhere. At first, it worked perfectly! But now, there's a hidden problem.

When insurance companies and out-of-network doctors disagree on a bill, they use a system called Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) to settle it. Instead of being a last resort, a few opportunistic medical groups are using it to make massive profits. They flood the system with hundreds of thousands of claims, win most of the time, and get paid four times the normal rate. Between 2022 and 2024, this broken system cost $5 billion!

Even worse, nearly 40% of these claims shouldn't even be allowed, but arbitrators pass them through anyway. If lawmakers don't fix this loophole, these hidden costs will eventually fall back on everyday families through higher insurance premiums and deductibles.

Source: rssapp-statnews-com URL: statnews.com/2026/03/20/no-surprises-act-independent-dispute-resolution-process/ (opens in new tab)