The impacts of New York's balance billing regulation on ground ambulance pricing.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To examine the effects of New York's surprise billing regulations on price changes by emergency ground ambulance service providers.

Study design

We exploited a natural experiment using a difference-in-differences design with randomization inference (RI) to examine the effects of New York state regulations on the prices of emergency ground ambulances, analyzing 2012-2019 commercial claims data. In March 2015, New York implemented a law protecting patients from surprise out-of-network (OON) balance bills, including ground ambulance services. New York's policy tied OON ground ambulance reimbursements to usual, customary, and reasonable rates that typically reflect charges. The control group consisted of similar states that never enacted surprise billing laws. Although

SUBMITTER: Xu WY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11911222 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature