Surprise Billing Deal Included In Omnibus With Provider-Friendly Changes

House and Senate leadership agreed to include surprise billing legislation in the year-end spending deal that both chambers plan to take up Monday (Dec. 21), but the legislation now bans the arbiter from considering Medicare and Medicaid rates. This small policy change skews the final policy even more towards what hospital associations and providers wanted, and away from insurers’ desired outcome. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spent the past two years trying to hammer out a deal on...