No Surprise Act
This requires that we post the following notice to all of our patients on our website. Your rights and protections against surprise medical bills.
When you get emergency care or get treated by an out-of-network provider at an in-network hospital or ambulatory surgical center, you are protected from surprise billing or balance billing.
Your rights and protections against surprise medical bills
What is “balance billing” (sometimes called “surprise billing”)?
You are protected from balance billing for:
Emergency services
Certain services at an in-network hospital or ambulatory surgical center
When you get services from an in-network hospital or ambulatory surgical center, certain providers there may be out-of-network. In these cases, the most those providers can bill you is your plan’s innetwork cost-sharing amount. This appliesto emergency medicine, anesthesia, pathology, radiology, laboratory, neonatology, assistant surgeon, hospitalist, and intensivist services. These providers can’t balance bill you and may not ask you to give up your protections not to be balance billed.
If you get other types of services at these in-network facilities, out-of-network providers can’t balance bill you, unless you give written consent and give up your protections. If your insurance ID card says “fully insured coverage,” you can’t give up your protections for these other services if they are a surprise bill. Surprise bills are when you’re at an in-network hospital or ambulatory surgical facility and a participating doctor was not available, a non-participating doctor provided services
without your knowledge, or unforeseen medical services were provided.
Services referred by your in-network doctor
If your insurance ID card says “fully insured coverage,” surprise bills include when your in-network doctor refers you to an out-of-network provider without your consent (including lab and pathology services). These providers can’t balance bill you and may not ask you to give up your protections not to be balance billed. You may need to sign a form (available on the Department of Financial Services’ website) for the full balance billing protection to apply
When balance billing isn’t allowed, you also have the following protections:
- You’re only responsible for paying your share of the cost (like the copayments, coinsurance, and deductibles that you would pay if the provider or facility was in-network). Your health plan will pay any additional costs to out-of-network providers and facilities directly.
- Generally, your health plan must:
- Cover emergency services without requiring you to get approval for services in advance (also known as “prior authorization”).
- Cover emergency services by out-of-network providers.
- Base what you owe the provider or facility (cost-sharing) on what it would pay an in-network provider or facility and show that amount in your explanation of benefits.
- Count any amount you pay for emergency services or out-of-network services toward your innetwork deductible and out-of-pocketlimit.
If you think you’ve been wrongly billed and your coverage is subject to New York Law
(“fully insured coverage”), contact the New York State Department of Financial Services at (800) 342-3736 or via email: surprisemedicalbills@dfs.ny.gov. Visit https://www.dfs.ny.gov for information about your rights under state law.
Contact CMS at (800) 985-3059 for self-funded coverage or coverage bought outside New York. Visit http://www.cms.gov/nosurprises/consumers for information about your rights under federal law.