Brightbill Terms & Disclaimer

Brightbill provides an eligibility estimate based on the information you enter, publicly available state charity-care laws and hospital data, and federal No Surprises Act rules. It is not a guarantee that any hospital will approve a charity-care application, that a federal reviewer will rule in your favor on a No Surprises Act dispute, or that you will receive any specific discount, refund, or other outcome. Actual results depend on the hospital's own review of a charity-care application, and, for a No Surprises Act dispute, on the independent reviewer assigned through the federal patient-provider dispute resolution process.

The information, letters, know-your-rights content, and No Surprises Act dispute wording provided are for general informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. We are not a law firm and do not represent you in any matter, including a No Surprises Act dispute filed through the federal patient-provider dispute resolution process. For advice specific to your situation, consult a licensed attorney or a nonprofit legal aid organization.

Brightbill is an independent, privately operated service operated by LASA Investments LLC. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any hospital, health system, insurance company, or government agency, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which administers the No Surprises Act dispute process.

Brightbill's help is free. There is no fee to apply, send, follow up, read replies or check a decision, and no fee for help with a surprise bill. An account can start up to 3 new cases in 30 days. The free check is free and anonymous, and it shows a preview of the application or letter Brightbill would send, written from your answers, and where it would go. When you start a case, you add the required documents before anything is sent: for a financial assistance application, your bill and one proof of income (or a statement that your household has no income); for a surprise bill, your bill and your Good Faith Estimate or your insurance statement (EOB). Brightbill reads them, you check what it read, and nothing is sent until you sign or approve it. For charity care, Brightbill's help includes: an eligibility estimate; reading the bill and income documents you upload; a financial assistance application prepared from the details you confirm and sent, with your documents, to the hospital; a secure case address, so replies come back to you and into your case; automatic follow-up letters when the hospital does not answer; reading each reply and checking the hospital's decision against the law and the hospital's own policy; preparing your next step, such as sending documents the hospital asked for, an appeal, a complaint to a state regulator, or an IRS complaint about a nonprofit hospital (Form 13909); deadline tracking; and general know-your-rights information sourced from your state's charity-care rules. For a surprise bill or a bill above a Good Faith Estimate, Brightbill's help includes: an eligibility estimate under the federal No Surprises Act; reading your Good Faith Estimate, bills or insurance statements; letters to providers about a surprise or balance bill, prepared from the details you confirm and sent with your approval; a secure case address; a prepared federal No Surprises complaint and, where you are eligible, a step-by-step guide with every answer ready for the federal patient-provider dispute resolution process, which you submit yourself; and deadline tracking. If you file a federal dispute, the government's $25 fee is paid to CMS, not to Brightbill. Sending by email is free. If a provider only accepts mail, or has no email address, Brightbill prints and mails your letters at no cost by regular first-class mail, through our mail vendor, from your name and address: the application and one follow-up letter for each provider. Where a provider only accepts an online portal, Brightbill prepares your answers and documents and you submit them yourself; Brightbill never logs in for you. Brightbill does not guarantee any financial outcome, discount amount, provider response, or the outcome of a No Surprises Act dispute, and it does not pay any government filing fee.

For charity care: when you check the summary of your application and type your name, you authorize Brightbill to send that application in your name, by email or mail, to the providers shown, and to send follow-up letters about that same application if a provider does not answer. Your typed name is your electronic signature on the application and on those follow-ups. Before each follow-up, Brightbill emails you to ask whether the provider has contacted you, and holds the follow-up if it has. You can pause or stop follow-ups at any time from your case. Anything that asks for something new, such as an appeal or a complaint to a regulator, is sent only after you approve that item. For a surprise bill: each letter is sent only after you review and approve that exact letter. For both cases, you are the sender of every letter, and you are responsible for the accuracy of the information you give us and confirm, including any recipient email address.

Brightbill does not charge patients for its help and does not ask patients for payments, tips or donations, before or after a decision. If anyone asks you to pay Brightbill, please tell us at support@brightbillapp.com.

Brightbill's help is free, so there is nothing to refund for it. The only fee you may meet is the government's: for a surprise bill, if you file a federal dispute, the government's $25 fee is paid to CMS, not to Brightbill, and Brightbill does not refund it. If you believe you were charged in error, email us at support@brightbillapp.com.

Letters go from a secure case address. When a provider replies to it, Brightbill forwards the reply, with its attachments, to the email address on your account and, while document reading is on, keeps a copy in your case so it can read it and prepare your next step. If you use the No Surprises Act complaint or dispute wording we provide, you review it and submit it yourself through the federal government's website; Brightbill does not log in, pay or submit anything on a government website for you.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Brightbill and LASA Investments LLC are not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of Brightbill, including any hospital's decision on a charity-care application or an independent reviewer's decision on a No Surprises Act dispute.

When you upload documents, Brightbill reads them automatically and asks you to check what it read. Results depend on the documents and answers you give us and may contain mistakes, so please check them against your documents. Brightbill sends nothing on your behalf except as you authorize in section 5. Our Health Data Privacy Policy explains how we handle your documents.