TALON Founder Mark Galvin: "On July 1, 2021, Americans Were Released From Healthcare Tyranny"

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Jul 06, 2021, 08:45 ET

PORTSMOUTH, N.H., July 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Mark Galvin, Founder and CEO of TALON (www.talonhealthtech.com), whose transformational technology was studied by policymakers in Washington, DC as they fashioned the Transparency in Coverage Rule (https://talonhealthtech.com/transparency-in-coverage-summary/) and No Surprises Act, said that the United States can consider July 1, 2021 "Healthcare Liberation Day." That's because on that day the Biden Administration published its interim final rule supporting the No Surprises Act, which Galvin sees as one of the most important consumer protection measures regarding healthcare—ever.

According to Galvin, the Biden Administration's interim final rule truly cements into place the No Surprises Act, which was signed into law by President Trump on December 27, 2020. The Act—a rare example of true bipartisanship in Washington, D.C.—prevents surprise medical bills that occur when doctors or other healthcare providers who are not "in-network" for a patient's insurance are, nonetheless, involved in that patient's care. An example would be when someone has surgery at an in-network hospital, but is surprised to find out that the anesthesiologist, whose bill is $4,700, was not in-network and expects to be paid by the patient directly.

The No Surprises Act (https://talonhealthtech.com/the-transparency-in-coverage-rule-and-the-no-surprises-act-a-millennials-perspective/) also requires hospitals and doctors to inform patients when any treatment is not "in-network" and to obtain their consent, in writing, to receive services they will be billed for directly.

Key provisions of the No Surprises Act become effective on January 1, 2022.

"There were three legs required to support real change in the healthcare delivery system," Galvin said. "The first was the Transparency in Coverage Rule, issued in October of 2020, which mandates that every company must make it easy for employees covered by insurance to access the actual prices from all healthcare providers near them for hundreds of medical tests and procedures. That has to happen by January 1, 2022, with thousands more prices to be revealed by January 1, 2023. The second leg of the stool was the Affordable Care Act itself, which created the legal basis for the Transparency in Coverage Rule to overcome court challenges by obstructionists. And the third leg of the stool is the interim final rule just issued from the Biden Administration."

Asked how important these changes actually are for American doctors and healthcare consumers who have wanted to work together toward high quality, fairly-priced tests and treatments, Galvin said, "Interestingly enough, the Battle of Gettysburg, which represented a turning point in the Civil War and a critical step away from tyranny, was fought on July 1, 1863. Now, 158 years later, to the day, Americans have witnessed a shift away from another kind of tyranny, with the chance for free market forces to finally bring sanity to the healthcare marketplace."

TALON is the leader in software designed for the Transparency in Coverage Rule and No Surprises Act, having onboarded clients in 49 states across America.

SOURCE TALON