Fixing Surprise Billing Could Save Billions in Premiums
A study published Sept. 11 in the American Journal of Managed Care found that a federal law to rein in surprise medical billing could reduce overall health insurance premiums by 1% to 5%. The study, which was prepared by researchers at the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy, was lauded by health insurance experts for looking at surprise billing’s impact on the insurance system at large, an area that they say has not been studied extensively.
The study is based on 2017 data compiled by the Health Care Cost Institute, which is drawn from claims submitted to UnitedHealthcare, Humana Inc. and CVS Health Corp.’s Aetna. The data is compiled from 568.5 million claims submitted by 44.8 million covered lives.