Experts talk about how to tackle surprise bills

Surprise out-of-network medical bills have increasingly been in the spotlight. In a new paper out this morning, Loren Adler and his colleagues at Brookings Institution outlined two possible policy fixes. “The first is requiring the hospital to sell a bundled package of services when they’re negotiating with a health plan,” Adler tells me. That means patients wouldn’t get hit with a huge bill if they have surgery at an in-network hospital but are sedated by an out-of-network anesthesiologist — a common surprise bill scenario. The other proposal would cap the amount that out-of-network providers can charge patients and health plans in surprise situations.