Arbitrators in No Surprises Act billing disputes reap tech-giant-level margins
Start here
The No Surprises Act created an arbitration process to settle out-of-network medical billing disputes between providers and insurers. A STAT+ investigation by Tara Bannow finds the arbitrators who decide these cases are earning strikingly high profit margins, in some cases rivaling those of major technology companies, raising questions about who the dispute-resolution mechanism actually serves. The findings come as the volume of arbitration cases under the law continues to grow. Whether the profit picture prompts regulatory or legislative scrutiny of the arbitration system remains unresolved.
Written by a model from the reports · updated 3 hours ago
Coverage timeline
Follow the coverage to see the different angles.
- STATSTAT+: The umpires getting rich off surprise medical bills, and MLB job lock
The arbitration mechanism created by the No Surprises Act was designed to resolve out-of-network medical billing disputes, but it has delivered strikingly high profit margins to the arbitrators who decide the cases, with some rivaling those of tech giants, as STAT+ colleague Tara Bannow reports in an exclusive. Separately, Milwaukee Brewers player Jake Bauers returned to baseball to keep his team health insurance.
Coverage and heat for this story
Reports so far 1·Heat now 9·Peak heat 10 (Oct 20 00:00)·Reports, 24h +1
Two panels, same clock (pointer stays in sync): top is cumulative editorial reports — only rises; last point = All reports; slope = new reports that hour. Bottom is Live-board heatIndex — 7-day participants with a 24-hour half-life, so it can fall when talk cools.