A Georgia coalition of physicians and patient advocates pledged support for legislative efforts to protect patients from surprise billing for emergency care, launching an ad campaign to carry its message.
The campaign — supported by the Medical Association of Georgia, the Georgia College of Emergency Physicians and the Epilepsy Foundation of Georgia — includes a video of a patient being notified by an insurer representative that his physician is no longer in network seconds before surgery.
"Knowing that hospitals are required by federal law to provide emergency care for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay, insurers are forcing physicians out-of-network — even at hospitals within their networks," Steve Walsh, MD, president of the Medical Association of Georgia, said in a statement. "The result is a surprise insurance gap that is creating financial hardship for too many patients and eroding the doctor-patient relationship."
The coalition's other initiatives include statewide advertising, social media use and "an advocacy blitz" that urges members to contact their representatives in support of guidelines to curb surprise medical bills.
Some of the proposed guidelines include eliminating patients' financial responsibility for out-of-network bills for emergency care; applying in-network rates to patients' deductibles and cost-sharing for unexpected out-of-network care; greater insurer transparency; and halting physicians from balance billing patients.
The coalition said the insurance company lobby has pursued a ban on balance billing, but their proposals would do little to solve the problem.