By Trudy Lieberman, Center for Health Journalism, September 17, 2019
Pity the poor consumer trying to understand the coming Congressional debate over surprise medical bills. Recall they are those staggering amounts of debt heaped on unsuspecting patients after they believed insurance had paid for their care. Those bills are growing rapidly and ensnaring more and more Americans in what has become one of the medical industry’s most unsavory business practices. And yet as unseemly as the practice sounds, dark-money groups are spending fiercely to keep the surprises coming.
Your chances of getting stuck with such a bill are going up, too, according to a study just published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The number of surprise bills for both ER and inpatient admissions are rising. In 2010, about 32% of all ER visits resulted in surprise bills. In 2016, nearly 43% did. Surprise bills for inpatient admissions jumped from about 26% to 42% over the same period. What’s more, the average amount billed to patients for ER visits nearly tripled and the cost for inpatient admissions more than doubled.
As these unwanted financial surprises hit more Americans, the special interests that benefit from socking patients with additional bills and their allies in the healing business have been lobbying hard in Congress and working the airwaves to convince consumers that any Congressional efforts this fall to correct the surprise billing problem may actually harm patients.
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