Interim Final Rule for the No Surprises Act

On July 1, U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and Treasury, and the Office of Personnel Management issued an interim final rule implementing the No Surprises Act (Act). 

The No Surprises Act, a bipartisan bill passed as part of a massive funding package in the final days of 2020, seeks to protect patients against surprise billing and balance billing at the federal level. The Act “provides federal protections against surprise billing and limits out-of-network cost-sharing under many of the circumstances in which surprise bills arise most frequently.” Surprise billing occurs when patients unknowingly receive emergency or non-emergency care from providers outside their health plan’s network. Patients typically bear the burden to pay the additional costs for out-of-network emergency and non-emergency services in these situations unless otherwise protected by state law.