ASA Urges Congress to Hold Health Insurers Accountable at Health Care Affordability Hearings

Newswise — As Congress convened two hearings yesterday focused on health care affordability, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) urged Congress to hold health insurers accountable for practices that increase costs, undermine patient access to care and destabilize the health care system.

In a statement submitted to both the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, ASA emphasized that anesthesiologists play a critical role in promoting affordability by preventing complications, and ensuring safe, efficient surgical care.

ASA President Patrick Giam, M.D., FASA, noted: “Despite an anesthesiologist’s central role in maintaining high standards of care in a cost-effective manner, our members continue to face unnecessary and time-consuming disputes with large health insurers. Recent years have been marked by payer-driven behaviors that divert scarce health care dollars away from clinical services and undermine the very premium dollars intended to support patient access and quality. Payer policy changes have been increasingly reckless in the past few years, oftentimes announcing policy changes mid-year, without warning, and in a punitive way against physicians providing quality care to the payer’s customers.”

ASA warned that insurer practices such as arbitrarily limiting anesthesia coverage, refusing to recognize the added work required to care for complex and high‑risk patients and penalizing facilities for contracting networks are short‑sighted and harmful. These policies ignore clinical realities, erode provider networks and put patient access to essential surgical and hospital‑based care at risk, particularly in rural and underserved communities.

ASA also raised concerns that some insurers continue to game the No Surprises Act Independent Dispute Resolution process through unreasonably low offers, payment delays and other tactics that undermine Congress’ intent to create a fair, transparent system while keeping patients out of the middle of payment disputes.

ASA applauded Congressional leaders for continuing to focus on health care affordability and urged lawmakers to safeguard fair coverage policies, ensure that insurer payment practices accurately reflect patient complexity and reinforce the shared responsibility of all parties to maintain robust provider networks.

About the American Society of Anesthesiologists

Founded in 1905, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is an educational, research and scientific society with more than 60,000 members organized to advance the medical practice of anesthesiology and secure its future. ASA is committed to ensuring anesthesiologists evaluate and supervise the medical care of all patients before, during, and after surgery. ASA members also lead the care of critically ill patients in intensive care units, as well as treat pain in both acute and chronic settings.

For more information on the field of anesthesiology, visit the American Society of Anesthesiologists online at asahq.org. To learn more about how anesthesiologists help ensure patient safety, visit asahq.org/madeforthismoment.