Starting in 2022, when the law goes into effect, consumers won't get balance bills when they seek emergency care, when they are transported by an air ambulance, or when they receive nonemergency care at an in-network hospital but are unknowingly treated by an out-of-network physician or laboratory.
Patients will pay only the deductibles and copayment amounts that they would under the in-network terms of their insurance plans.
Medical providers won't be allowed to hold patients responsible for the difference between those amounts and the higher fees they might like to charge. Instead, those providers will have to work out acceptable payments with insurers. For the uninsured, for whom everything is out of network, the bill requires the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to create a provider-patient bill dispute resolution process.
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