The Texas Medical Association filed a fourth lawsuit over the No Surprise Act on Monday, this time focusing on boosted fees both parties must pay for an independent arbitration process to solve billing disputes between providers and payers, Healthcare Dive reports.
The CMS increased the administrative fee for arbitration, or IDR, processes — from $50 to $350 — at the start of the year. The TMA alleges the change will “not only will make the process significantly more expensive for all IDR participants but will make it cost-prohibitive for many providers to access IDR at all,” according to the suit.
The suit also challenges the laws’ restrictions on batching claims, which allows arbitration processes only on claims with the same service code, requiring providers to go through a separate payment dispute process for each claim related to an individual’s care episode, according to the suit. Read more.
