No Surprises Act Update

No Surprises Act Update

On February 23, 2022, a federal judge in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division sided with the Texas Medical Association and struck down part of the No Surprises Act Interim Final Rule. Specifically. the court struck the provision that states that arbitrators are to assume the QPA is the correct amount of reimbursement. The Court held that: 1) the Plaintiffs had standing to challenge the IFR; 2) that the IFR conflicted with the unambiguous terms of the No Surprises Act; 3) that the Departments implementing the IFR improperly bypasses the notice and comment requirements in implementing the challenged part of the IFR; and 4) that the addressed provision of the rule should be vacated. It is likely that this ruling will be appealed.

The opinion can be found here TMA v US HHS.