Anesthesiologists saw the unit price for out-of-network services drop 14% in California and 17% in Florida after surprise billing legislation was implemented.

State laws that attempt to address “surprise billing” issues have had the effect of lowering prices for anesthesia services in some states, a new study has found.

The study, published in JAMA, looked at more than 2.5 million private health insurance claims in California, Florida and New York, three states that had passed surprise billing laws. The term is in reference to frequent cases of patients who thought they were getting in-network care but received out-of-network bills because certain providers, such as anesthesiologists, were not in-network.