A new investigative report shows that even the COVID-19 crisis has not stopped many hospital systems from using aggressive collections practices to collect on unpaid medical debt. CHIR’s Maanasa Kona takes a deep dive into the problem of medical debt and aggressive collections practices, and how the government can step in to protect consumers.
On January 15th and 16th, 2020, the U.S. Department of Transportation held the inaugural Air Ambulance and Patient Billing Advisory Committee meeting. Established by the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, the Committee is tasked with reviewing “options to improve the disclosure of charges and fees for air medical services, better inform consumers of insurance options for such services, and protect consumers from balance billing.” CHIR’s Maanasa Kona discusses some of the key takeaways from the meeting.
We are now two weeks into Open Enrollment for 2020 health insurance coverage. As consumer look at provider networks and choose their health coverage, the issue of surprise billing may be top of mind. This week, we answer two questions to help consumers avoid and respond to a surprise medical bill.
More often than not, air ambulance services are called in to serve people in severe physical distress who do not have the capacity at the time to provide consent. Yet many are later hit with huge surprise out-of-network charges for the flight. State departments of insurance and state legislators across the nation have taken notice of this issue and sought to protect consumers, but a federal law that has nothing to do with health care prevents them from regulating air ambulance providers. CHIR’s Maanasa Kona explains two potential federal remedies.
For decades, elite “concierge” practices have been providing easy access to primary care in return for several thousand dollars in retainer fees. Recently we’ve seen the emergence of more affordable versions of this arrangement, with monthly fees that cost far less than the average ACA marketplace plan premium. At first blush, these arrangements, frequently called “direct primary care arrangements” (DPCAs), might seem like a way to ensure access to health care services in the face of rising health insurance premiums. CHIR’s Maanasa Kona explains why this is not always the case.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ tax reform bill would eliminate the medical expense deduction to help pay for cuts to corporate tax rates. CHIR’s Maanasa Kona takes a look at this deduction, who takes advantage of it, and how losing it could impact people with chronic or high cost medical conditions.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the individual blog post authors and do not represent the views of Georgetown University, the Center on Health Insurance Reforms, any organization that the author is affiliated with, or the opinions of any other author who publishes on this blog.
