Texas Department of Insurance publishes Balance Billing protections report for 2020
TDI has posted its official biennial report on the impact of Senate Bill 1264 passed in the 2019 legislative session. The bill created a new high/low arbitration procedure to resolve disputes resolving from “surprise” or balance bills. The report is lengthy but several trends are clear such as: 1) whether resolved in the informal phase, by mediation or arbitration, the final amount is universally closer to the original amount paid by the carrier than the amount billed by the provider; 2) everyone is happier in 2020: consumers complaints were down 96% in 2020 and provider complaints were down 70%; 3) the problem has not yet been solved – while case referrals were fairly flat through May of 2020, that was largely due to COVID since they have steadily increased since then. For more detail click here:
https://www.tdi.texas.gov/reports/documents/SB1264-report-december-2020.pdf
