Does United Healthcare or other insurance companies have the power to decide the future of the Surgical & Physician Assistant industry?

Fellow Assistants:

Recently, Congress passed their own version of the Texas Senate Bill 1264 (Surprise Billing) and included it with the Consolidated Appropriations Act.  Both bills call for informed “written” consent of the patient, with the federal act requiring this “at least” 72 hours prior to services being provided.  This rules out any chance of acquiring this consent anywhere but the surgeon’s office. 

The Arbitration process (which is binding) will be another roadblock as “out-of-network providers are only allowed to batch up to 30 days of claims to the issuer for a single arbitration case, and it must be the case that such items and services are related to the treatment of a similar condition”.  It gets worse, as the provider must then wait another 90 days before initiating a new arbitration proceeding with the same issuer for similar services.

There are other aspects for worry, hospitals hiring independent LSA’s (who can no longer afford to be independent and making them do “double duty” scrubbing and assisting, I could go on and on,  but the point is this,  our industry as we have known it is under siege and our livelihoods are at risk.

The insurance companies can already smell the blood in the water, especially United Healthcare.  Even though the federal bill is not effective until January 1, 2022, United began drastically lowering reimbursements on March 1, 2021.  United Healthcare never paid 100% of these claims to begin with and if this is not stopped, other insurers will begin following.

That is why we must act now!

We, the surgical and physician assistants of North America, are requesting you to sign this petition to United Healthcare in protest. A compromise to this situation is not the solution and that is why we are taking this position to step up and lead this cause nationwide which will be followed by a legal remedy. This issue is not for just one person but for an entire industry and we must all give our support to the common cause.

By signing this petition, you appeal United Healthcare to re-instate reimbursements back to historic 70-80% of billed charges on an out-of-network basis and your support will result in developing this platform to enhance our goal.

Thank you.