Source: Fortune
The No Surprises Act, designed to protect patients from unexpected out-of-network bills, has become a clearing house for systemic healthcare billing chaos—generating 2 million disputes annually versus the projected 17,000. This gap points to a deeper problem: endemic opacity and misalignment between insurance networks, hospital systems, and provider reimbursement rates that no single consumer protection law can address without forcing structural reform. The law's failure at scale suggests policymakers underestimated the scope of billing dysfunction or the industry's resistance to pricing transparency. Future healthcare regulation will likely require enforcement mechanisms targeting provider behavior, not just patient complaint resolution.