从周六开始，紧急医院旅行不再是单独的紧急情况：一项意外的医疗费用，因为值班医生恰好接受您的保险。
国会通过的新规则称为没有惊喜的行为。它于1月1日生效，并为几乎所有的急诊室访问和大多数常规护理建立了新的联邦保护措施。
“Surprise bills” refers to when insured patients show up for care—it could be scheduled and routine, could be an emergency—but they’re treated by an out-of-network doctor or other provider they didn’t purposefully choose.Recentstudieshave found this happens in about one in every five ER visits today, often via a radiologist or third-party lab the patient never even saw. The act should eliminate or help reduce some 10 million annual medical bills, according to the government. It was a rare piece of bipartisan legislation, passed during President Trump’s administration, then tweaked and enacted during President Biden’s.
如果是该法案涵盖的医疗程序或服务，则该规则可以通过两种主要方式保护患者免于出人意料的账单：
- 它禁止医生，医院和其他卫生提供者向患者开票超过他们根据当前的保险计划支付的网络护理费用。因此，有效地，网络外成本将被收取，就好像它们是在网络中一样。罚款高达10,000美元，可能适用于每项违规行为。
- 它结束了一种常见的计费惯例，即网络外提供商将账单直接向患者发送全部未经调整的费用。这些情况用来使患者抵抗其保险公司，以收集他们可能的报销。现在，网络外提供者必须找到患者的保险提供者，并直接向他们提交账单。
（但是，有一个大雕刻：地面救护车。国会说，它不包括地面救护车的账单，因为他们“需要另一种监管方法”。卫生与公共服务部委员会委员会已经建立研究该问题，后来可以根据单独的法律进行改革。）
对于非紧急服务（从联合替代手术或结肠镜检查到剖腹产的任何事情），规则是您必须确保您选择了网络内的医疗机构和保险计划所涵盖的医生。完成此操作后，如果额外的医生或提供者对待您，他们将无法获得奖金。
尽管如此，在适当的环境中保持这一新规则仍然很重要：美国的医疗保健仍然非常昂贵。A最近的报告由经济合作与发展组织组成的发现，美国人的支出比第二高的国家卢森堡多30％。The No Surprises Act doesn’t function as the medical-bill equivalent of a “Get out of jail free” card—meaning, if your insurance plan has a high deductible or uses a coinsurance system in which you pay a percentage of the total charges, you may still wind up with a hefty bill, which the law is toothless to affect. What the No Surprises Act does eliminate is the risk that, by some raw deal, an out-of-network doctor or hospital you didn’t ask for treats you, then bills you separately. Now, once you’ve met your deductible or made your normal co-payment, you shouldn’t expect any more bills connected to that particular service.