No Surprises Act Enforcement Act

Key Points

• This bill increases the fines that health insurance companies must pay if they break laws protecting patients from surprise medical bills. Currently, companies might only pay $100 a day for certain mistakes, but this plan would raise that to $10,000 for every single violation.
• It targets 'balance billing,' which happens when a patient gets an unexpected bill from an out-of-network doctor even though they went to an in-network hospital. The goal is to make sure insurance companies follow the federal rules that protect patients from these high costs.
• If an insurance company and a doctor have a dispute over a bill that goes to a neutral tie-breaker, the loser must pay within 30 days. If they fail to pay on time, they would be forced to pay three times the original amount owed, plus interest.
• The bill requires the government to track and report these violations more closely. Every six months, officials would have to tell Congress how many audits they performed, how many complaints they received from patients, and which companies were fined.
• By making the penalties much more expensive, the bill aims to stop insurance companies from ignoring the law or delaying payments to doctors. This is intended to ensure that the existing protections for patients are actually enforced.