The Trump administration plans to oust two No Surprises arbitration firms, as the law draws more scrutiny for its high payouts to doctors.
We don't know why these two were singled out. We do know one let doctors win 96 percent of the time.
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Sarah Kliff✓
@sarahkliff
Investigations and health policy for the @nytimes. I like reading your medical bills.
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- One new-to-me detail we learned in the course of our reporting: when Congress wrote the No Surprises Act, it ported over many parts of federal arbitration law. It did not, however, bring over key enforcement provisions. Without an enforcement mechanism, supposedly binding arbitration decisions are being ignored.Sarah Kliff @sarahkliffArbitrators are ordering insurers to pay for emergency care, like airlifts by helicopters and ER visits. Health plans are refusing. The latest in the No Surprises Act saga from me and @sangerkatz. A large new data set we obtained shows that 30 percent of awards are going unpaid, as insurers flout the consumer protection law.65016519.7K
- Arbitrators are ordering insurers to pay for emergency care, like airlifts by helicopters and ER visits. Health plans are refusing. The latest in the No Surprises Act saga from me and @sangerkatz. A large new data set we obtained shows that 30 percent of awards are going unpaid, as insurers flout the consumer protection law.
104913224.7K - Posts @sarahkliffRead the full story here (gift link below, should be accessible to all!):05192.5K
- Sarah KliffRT @ShaneGoldmacher: NEWS: Roger Marshall goes rogue. The inside story of how an embattled Kansas Republican wanted an ad to push back on medical debt attacks, was told no by his team, made one anyway without knowledge of some advisers and got it out into the world.03890112
- New: A former patient has filed a class action lawsuit against Sen. Roger Marshall, arguing that the 18 percent interest she was charged was "egregious" and may have violated Kansas law.05413916.8K
- Over the weekend, Sen. Marshall addressed our @nytimes reporting finding that he sued hundreds of patients for outstanding medical debts. Sen. Marshall said this was a "common business practice" and that he waited a year before sending cases to litigation. I have spoken with multiple obstetric patients who he sued sooner than that.
16248590190K - New exclusive: In his 25 years as an OBGYN, Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas repeatedly sued patients for outstanding medical debt. At least 81 were arrested during their court proceedings. Some had debt from c-sections; others from miscarriages.
2451.8K6.4K1.5M - Earlier this year, @sangerkatz and I wrote about a chain of autism clinics that were limiting preschoolers' naps to 7 minutes so they could bill more to Medicaid. Yesterday, Medicaid rolled out new guidance to states that would address this type of billing behavior.
127467.1K - Posts @sarahkliffThe Trump administration released new guidance Tuesday telling states they should require breaks for children in autism therapy, between long sessions of care. Read more about that, and other ways the government wants states to better oversee autism therapy, here:2241.8K
- When Congress passed the No Surprises Act, legislators constantly described the new system as "baseball-style arbitration." Turns out, they might have missed some key features Major League Baseball's system - and that might explain the outcomes we're seeing today.
16204.4K - Posts @sarahkliffToday @sangerkatz and I take a deep dive into Major League Baseball arbitration, how it works, and why we're seeing some very different outcomes in the health care system that Congress modeled after it.1243K
- NSA expert folks fact-check me here, but wouldn't the No Surprises Act prevent a surprise bill for air ambulance transit in a case like this??5196.2K
- Margot and I will be continuing to report on No Surprises Act this year. If you have a tip to share related to the law, get in touch! sarah.kliff@nytimes.comMargot Sanger-Katz @sangerkatz@sarahkliff In our reporting, we found numerous examples where surgical assistants out-earned surgeons by using the NSA's arbitration system. For this scoliosis surgery, the assistant won 24x the main surgeon's fee.5106020.2K
Margot Sanger-Katz@sangerkatzPosts @sangerkatz@sarahkliff In our reporting, we found numerous examples where surgical assistants out-earned surgeons by using the NSA's arbitration system. For this scoliosis surgery, the assistant won 24x the main surgeon's fee.
361727.7K- For context, surgical assistants typically earn $70,000 to $100,000 per year. We found that some have used No Surprises Act arbitration to earn $22,000 per hour.Sarah Kliff @sarahkliff.@msk & I dug into what surgical assistants are earning in No Surprises Act arbitration. We found surgical assistants' earning: —$50,000 for a prostate surgery —$100,000 for a breast reconstruction (just right breast, not left) —$210,000 for a facial feminization procedure698947.1K
- .@msk & I dug into what surgical assistants are earning in No Surprises Act arbitration. We found surgical assistants' earning: —$50,000 for a prostate surgery —$100,000 for a breast reconstruction (just right breast, not left) —$210,000 for a facial feminization procedure7245795.7K
- Surgical assistants often earn $70,000 to $100,000 for helping doctors suture and retract. Some are taking advantage of a consumer protection law to earn $210,000 for a single operation, we found in our new @nytimes investigation.9378935.7K
