balance billing

What is balance billing?

Balance billing occurs when providers bill a patient for the difference between the amount they charge and the amount that the patient’s insurance pays. The amount that insurers pay providers is almost always less than the providers’ “retail price.” Some providers will bill the patient for the difference, or balance; this is called balance billing. (Note that “surprise” balance billing is a specific type of balance billing, addressed in more detail below.)

Providers that are in-network have agreed to accept the insurance payment as payment in full (less any applicable copays, deductible, or coinsurance), and are not allowed to balance bill the patient. However, balance billing is allowed if the provider is not in your insurance network (as described below, there are varying state rules that apply in certain circumstances, and new federal legislation protects consumers in certain circumstances as of 2022).

Some insurance plans (usually PPOs and POS plans) cover out-of-network care, but the medical provider has not signed any sort of agreement with the insurer in that case. If the insurer covers out-of-network care, they will pay the provider based on the insurer’s reasonable and customary rates (keeping in mind that the patient will be responsible for the out-of-network deductible and coinsurance, which is typically quite a bit higher than in-network cost-sharing). But at that point, the provider can bill the patient for the difference between what was billed and what the insurer paid. They do not have to write off the difference the way an in-network provider would.

How are people protected from surprise balance billing starting in 2022?

Protection from most surprise balance billing has arrived as of 2022, thanks to the No Surprises Act. This federal legislation was incorporated into the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, which Congress passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in December 2020; President Trump signed it into law in late 2020.

This is a massive piece of legislation that has been widely referred to as the second major COVID-19 relief bill (it does contain a substantial amount of COVID relief measures), but which also appropriated government funding for the first nine months of 2021, addressed climate change, and tackled surprise balance billing — among many other things.

The surprise balance billing provisions in the legislation are designed to hold consumers harmless in nearly all scenarios that would otherwise result in surprise balance bills — ie, all emergency situations, and situations in which services are received from out-of-network providers at in-network facilities — as of January 2022.

Although air ambulance charges are addressed by the legislation, ground ambulance charges are not (Sarah Kliff and Margo Sanger-Katz explain more about this here; most ground ambulance services are provided by local governments as opposed to private entities). But the legislation did include a provision to create a commission to study ground ambulance charges in an effort to incorporate consumer protections for these services into a future piece of legislation. The Biden administration announced in November 2021 that the advisory committee was being established, and invited interested experts to apply for a position on the committee.

In July 2021, HHS published an interim final rule with details regarding how the surprise balance billing protections would be implemented as of 2022 (more details are available here and here). A second interim final rule was issued in September, and a third in November. HHS has also published guidance for the implementation of the law.

The agency acknowledged that the rulemaking process would not be complete by the time the No Surprises Act took effect in January 2022, and there are pending lawsuits challenging its implementation. But from a consumer perspective, the No Surprises Act’s consumer protections are in effect as of January 2022. Until official guidance is finalized, regulated entities are expected to make a good faith effort to comply with the law and follow a reasonable interpretation of what it requires.