Congress must address the insurance practices that leave patients without appropriate in-network care options and accurate information about their financial obligations. Policies to ensure more rigorous network adequacy oversight, transparent and accurate plan information, especially regarding in-network and out-of-network payment and cost-sharing policies, and accurate provider directories are critical to a long-term solution.

Setting an arbitrary in-network rate will eviscerate the already limited ability by independent physicians to negotiate fair contract terms with insurers. This approach will drive even more provider consolidation, resulting in less choice in doctors and higher prices for patients and employers. This is exactly what surprise medical bill legislation is supposed to prevent. Congress must strike a balance that preserves access to important services by emergency physicians, on-call surgeons and other specialists. Approaches that use insurers’ “in-network” agreements as a benchmark don’t cover physicians’ full treatment cost or take patients’ specific insurance coverage and circumstances into account. Instead of relying on the non-transparent rates insurers set, surprise medical bill settlements should use reimbursement data from independent organizations that encourage transparency and fairness by removing outlier fees and payments. This approach takes into account physicians’ actual medical costs across local geographies and other factors, like the patient’s specific insurance product.

Five years ago, New York enacted a law that absolves patients of responsibility for surprise medical bills and uses transparent, independently-collected data to ensure arbitrated settlements are fair, which promotes access to needed doctors. The law is a proven arbitration deterrent, with more disputes being resolved before reaching that stage. When disputes are arbitrated, the loser pays. Decisions have been split evenly between providers and insurers, an indicator that the law is promoting fairness. This approach is working: since it went into effect, New York premiums have grown more slowly than the rest of the nation, and out-of-network charges are down 13 percent, according to a May 2019 Georgetown University Health Policy Institute case study.

The principles embodied in the bipartisan proposal by U.S. Representatives Raul Ruiz (D-CA), Phil Roe (R-TN) and six colleagues reflect the best framework for legislation, because it’s grounded in New York’s successful approach.