by Noam N. Levey, KFF Well being Information
As President Donald Trump wrapped up his first time period in 2020, he signed laws to guard People from shock medical payments. “This must end,” Trump mentioned. “We’re going to hold insurance companies and hospitals totally accountable.”
However the president’s wide-ranging push to slash authorities spending, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is weakening the federal workplace charged with implementing the No Surprises Act.
Some 15% of these working on the federal Heart for Shopper Data and Insurance coverage Oversight, or CCIIO, had been fired two weeks in the past, in line with the company’s former deputy director in control of operations, Jeff Grant.
And whereas the complete affect of the cutbacks remains to be coming into focus, the retrenchment is threatening work at an company already laboring to run an overstretched system for resolving typically very giant payments from out-of-network medical suppliers.
“It’s a hot mess,” Grant mentioned of the job cuts in an interview with KFF Well being Information. “The chaos has put everyone in a tailspin.”
The cuts, which affected 82 of the federal workplace’s staff, additionally danger delaying important new guidelines designed to hurry the method of adjudicating disputes over shock payments between well being plans and medical suppliers.
Grant, who was the highest profession official at CCIIO, retired final week after 41 years in authorities. He blasted the layoffs as a “grievous error” in a strongly worded letter to the performing human assets director, criticizing him for slicing jobs with out regard for the {qualifications} of staff or the wants of the company.
Well being insurers have additionally raised issues about sustaining the company’s work on shock payments.
A spokesperson for the federal Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers, which oversees the CCIIO, mentioned the federal company is doing that. “CMS is committed to enforcing the No Surprises Act, and the agency continues to move forward with that important work,” Catherine Howden mentioned.
The CCIIO, a small a part of the federal well being company, was created by the 2010 Inexpensive Care Act and charged with making certain that medical health insurance plans meet requirements established by the legislation to guard sufferers.
After Congress handed the No Surprises Act in 2020, the workplace assumed further accountability for organising and administering the complicated course of for safeguarding sufferers from shock payments.
The work drew help from Democrats and Republicans, who’d been inundated with tales of sufferers hit by enormous payments from emergency physicians, anesthesiologists, and different suppliers who weren’t in sufferers’ insurance coverage networks, even when sufferers obtained care at in-network hospitals.
“We will end surprise medical billing,” Trump promised on the marketing campaign path in 2020. “The days of ripping off patients are over.”
The legislation barred medical suppliers generally from pursuing sufferers over shock payments. This prohibition will not be instantly affected by the latest job cuts ordered by Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity, created by Trump by way of an govt order.
However the CCIIO had been working to streamline a system established by the No Surprises Act to resolve disagreements between well being plans and medical suppliers over out-of-network payments. This key safety was put in place so sufferers wouldn’t be caught in the course of billing disputes.
The system, often known as unbiased dispute decision, or IDR, has been inundated with a whole bunch of hundreds of instances. In 2023, greater than 650,000 new disputes had been filed, in line with a latest evaluation printed within the journal Well being Affairs.
“The No Surprises Act has protected millions of Americans from receiving surprise medical bills,” mentioned Jennifer Jones, who directs legislative coverage on the Blue Cross Blue Defend Affiliation, an insurance coverage commerce group. “But issues with the independent dispute resolution process,” she added, “are driving up costs for patients and employers.”
Additionally overwhelmed has been a client reporting system designed to permit sufferers to lodge complaints in the event that they really feel they’ve been unfairly focused with a shock invoice.
Beneath former President Joe Biden, the CCIIO had been engaged on new guidelines to make dispute decision extra environment friendly, which specialists mentioned would make a distinction.
“If this rule becomes final and works as well as intended, it should help more out-of-network claims get resolved,” mentioned Jack Hoadley, an emeritus analysis professor at Georgetown College, who has studied shock medical billing.
However the brand new guidelines weren’t completed earlier than Biden left workplace. And the senior official overseeing this work left his job in January. The latest cuts hit the remaining CCIIO staffers engaged on the No Surprises Act, in line with Grant and different sources accustomed to the layoffs, who requested to not be recognized out of concern {of professional} retaliation.
Grant mentioned senior CCIIO officers had been since in a position to shift some staff round and received permission to recall a few of the 82 individuals let go. However he mentioned there isn’t a assure that each one of them will need to come again to the diminished company.
Much more regarding, Grant mentioned, are deeper cuts that the White Home has informed federal businesses to arrange for by March 13.
“These cuts were pretty bad,” Grant mentioned. “What happens next will be even more important.”
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is among the core working packages at KFF—an unbiased supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Be taught extra about KFF.
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