Providers Keep Prevailing in ‘No Surprises Act’ Arbitration Cases

Jun 13
Jun 13, 2025

As the number of No Surprises Act (NSA) payment disputes being sent to arbitration continues to climb, health care providers are winning disputes more often than health plans and earning higher payouts, according to a new analysis.

“Clearly, it is an added cost for plans,” says Jack Hoadley, research professor emeritus at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute and coauthor of the analysis. He observes that those costs come in various forms: the fees associated with Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) cases, the staff time needed to address the cases filed against insurers, and claims costs when insurers lose cases.
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Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.