UnitedHealthcare balance-billed me $14,800 on an emergency room visit at an out-of-network hospital after stabilization for acute appendicitis with surgical consult and overnight observation in Texas despite the No Surprises Act and Texas surprise billing protections by treating the post-stabilization admission as a non-emergency requiring patient consent for out-of-network treatment. Forced full in-network adjudication and $0 patient responsibility using the No Surprises Act emergency services framework, the post-stabilization continuing care analysis, and the federal Independent Dispute Resolution arbitration. The five-element approach to surprise emergency room billing on stabilization and post-stabilization care
Posting this because surprise emergency room billing under the federal No Surprises Act and parallel state surprise billing statutes is one of the most common policyholder underpayment patterns in...