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American Physician Partners, which until recently provided outsourced emergency room services to 150 U.S. hospitals, said Thursday that a ban on so-called "surprise" medical bills hastened the company's descent into bankruptcy, Reuters reported. The company's chief restructuring officer John DiDonato said at a Thursday bankruptcy court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware, that the 2020 No Surprises Act hampered the company's ability to raise revenue and recover from the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The law was passed to protect patients from surprise billing for care from providers outside their insurers' network. Insurers pay a much lower share of the cost of out-of-network providers than in-network providers. Before the No Surprises Act, providers typically billed patients for the balance of the cost. DiDonato on Thursday said although the law was motivated by a "sound" policy goal, it has unexpectedly worsened negotiations between healthcare providers and insurers who "unilaterally" refuse or delay payment for medical care. The private equity-backed company, which once employed 2,500 physicians, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday after transitioning all of its medical services to new contractors and winding down operations. It has more than $570 million in debt. "The No Surprises Act had the unintended consequence of shifting the balance of power toward insurers," DiDonato told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon. "Surprise" billing had been particularly prevalent for emergency department visits, when patients would visit a hospital that was part of their insurance network but later receive a bill for out-of-network care from doctors who are not part of the same insurance network as the hospital. About 70% of emergency departments in the U.S. are outsourced, according to American Physician Partners' court filings. The company said that it did not bill patients for costs not covered by insurance. But the regulations implementing the ban have encouraged insurers to unilaterally reduce or deny payments, funneling cost disputes into a slow and ineffective "independent dispute resolution" process, according to the company's court filings.

The Detroit Three automakers and the union representing the companies' U.S. hourly workers on Friday entered the final hours to reach new labor agreements before the current coordinated strike expands to include more plants, Reuters reported. The UAW last week launched unprecedented, simultaneous strikes at one assembly plant each of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler parent Stellantis, but analysts expect any wider strike will include plants that build highly profitable pickup trucks such as Ford's F-150, GM's Chevy Silverado and Stellantis' Ram. About 12,700 workers walked out at plants in Missouri, Michigan and Ohio, which produce the Ford Bronco, Jeep Wrangler and Chevrolet Colorado, alongside other popular models. UAW President Shawn Fain has warned that more of the union's 146,000 members who work at the Detroit Three will join them if new deals are not reached before noon EDT (1600 GMT) on Friday.

The use of temporary factory workers at the Detroit car companies has long rankled the United Auto Workers union, which wants fewer of them and a faster path to full-time status, the Wall Street Journal reported. Automakers say they need the flexibility that temp workers provide, especially as they manage a tricky and costly transition to electric vehicles and confront the ups and downs of factory production. The issue is a key point of debate at the bargaining table as the UAW’s strike against General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler’s parent, Stellantis, enters its seventh day. Negotiations center on new contracts for about 146,000 U.S. auto-factory workers at the three car companies. Union leaders have been vocal in their opposition to temporary staff, arguing that it creates inequality on the assembly line with one worker making a much higher wage than another for doing the same work. Temps, who are also UAW members, start at about $16 an hour. Full-time line workers start at about $18 an hour and can progress to roughly $32 an hour over eight years.

Medical staffing company American Physician Partners LLC filed for bankruptcy protection to wind down its business after it ceased operations in July, citing economic headwinds brought by the pandemic and lost revenue from new regulation, Bloomberg News reported. The company listed assets of as much as $500 million and liabilities of as much as $1 billion in its petition, filed Monday in Delaware. As of July 31, American Physician Partners had transitioned its clients to other emergency medicine companies, hospitals and health systems, according to a statement. It plans to liquidate under court supervision. American Physician Partners’ decision to fold came after it failed to reach a deal with another hospital staffing firm, SCP Health, Bloomberg previously reported. The company said in court papers that it wasn’t able to find a potential acquirer, equity investors or replacement lenders. The Brentwood, Tennessee-based firm was owned by Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., along with member physicians and management. Physician staffing firms were hit hard by the pandemic as many patients delayed elective procedures and avoided emergency rooms over fears of catching COVID-19. The company received more than $30 million in relief funding, which it said helped offset lost revenue in 2020 and 2021. But as staffing shortages persisted, factors like rising labor costs and inflation continued to weigh down on the company’s revenue, according to a court filing yesterday. The company claimed that it also suffered in 2022 after the No Surprises Act went into effect. The law protects customers from large, unexpected bills when they receive care from providers not covered by their insurance, and the company said it left most of its payment disputes with insurers unresolved. Before ceasing operations this summer, American Physician Partners held approximately 150 contracts with emergency departments and hospital systems mostly in the South and Midwest. The company, founded in 2015, suffered operating losses greater than $100 million from 2019 through last year, despite revenue growth that neared 50% across that time period, the court filing shows.

The United Auto Workers union said it would announce on Friday more plants to strike if no serious progress was made in talks with Ford, General Motors and Chrysler-parent Stellantis, adding to pressure on the Detroit Three automakers, Reuters reported. Ford also faces a total strike at its smaller Canadian operations if no agreement is reached on Monday evening with the union representing about 5,600 Canadian auto workers, just days after workers at one of its U.S. plants walked out. The UAW last week launched a targeted strike against Ford, GM and Stellantis (STLAM.MI), targeting one U.S. assembly plant at each company. "We're not going to keep waiting around forever while they drag this out," UAW President Shawn Fain said in a video message late on Monday setting the new deadline after complaining about a lack of progress in recent talks. "We're not messing around." Canadian union Unifor, whose contract with Ford expired at 11:59 EDT on Monday, said there was still no deal just hours before the deadline. Unifor National President Lana Payne said in a video posted on the union's website that Ford needed to do more to meet members' expectations and demands. "If there is a strike, this will be a total strike," she said. "Every single one of Unifor's 5,600 members at Ford in Canada will be on picket lines." Ford has two engine plants in Canada that build V-8 motors for F-series and Super Duty pickups assembled in the United States. It also has an assembly plant in Ontario.

Yellow Corp. received U.S. bankruptcy court approval on Friday to sell its vehicle fleet by October, while continuing to market its real estate assets, which have already received a $1.525 billion bid, Reuters reported. The freight shipping company, which went bankrupt in August after a protracted labor dispute, owns approximately 12,000 trucks and 35,000 trailers, according to its bankruptcy court filings. Yellow has set an Oct. 13 bid deadline for those assets. Hundreds of buyers have already expressed interest and signed non-disclosure agreements, and some have begun conducting on-site inspections, Yellow attorney Allyson Smith told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Goldblatt at a court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware. "The sale process is well underway at this point," Smith said. Yellow intends to conduct an auction for the vehicles by Oct 18 and seek court approval for the vehicle sale on Oct. 27.

Private less-than-truckload carrier Estes Express Lines’ new bid of $1.525 billion for Yellow’s terminals is now the front-runner, court documents revealed on Wednesday, Freight Waves reported. A filing in a Delaware bankruptcy court showed the carrier entered a stalking horse offer eclipsing the $1.5 billion bid made by rival Old Dominion Freight Line. Estes started the bidding war in mid-August when it made a $1.3 billion offer. The motion showed Yellow has designated the Estes offer as the best so far and requested the court to rule on the matter by Sept. 22 to avoid the risk of it being withdrawn. The new bid exceeds all amounts owed to secured creditors. “We are pleased to have been designated as the real estate stalking horse bidder,” a representative from Estes told FreightWaves. “We believe our proposed transaction is mutually beneficial to both Estes and the Yellow bankruptcy estate. We look forward to participating in this process and working collaboratively with the parties in the case and appreciate everyone’s efforts to date.” Estes’ offer also includes “substantially below market” bid protections. It provides a maximum of $9.1 million in total, including a $7.5 million breakup fee and expense reimbursement up to $1.6 million. Read more.

In related news, Yellow paid bonuses totaling about $4.6 million to eight current and two former executives in the weeks before the company went bankrupt with plans to liquidate, according to corporate disclosures in Delaware bankruptcy court. The figure is higher than it would have been had Yellow managed to avoid a sudden bankruptcy filing, Bloomberg News reported. Of the bonuses disbursed, nearly $2 million paid on July 14 were approved by Yellow’s board in June — when the company was in trouble, but before it was considering filing for bankruptcy, according to the person. Yellow’s public feud with a union representing much of its workforce escalated days later when a strike notice prompted the company’s customers to take their business elsewhere, Yellow has said. The remaining bonuses paid on July 31 became necessary, then, as Yellow planned for a bankruptcy filing that would be used to repay creditors and wind down, according to the person, who asked not to be named discussing private deliberations. The company’s fleet of trailers, trucking terminals and other assets — all of which would need to be sold quickly and at the highest prices possible — had previously been valued at roughly $2.1 billion. A fire sale could seriously reduce the prices they fetched. Read more.

The United Auto Workers union for the first time ever went on strike at all three Detroit car companies, with workers hitting the picket lines shortly after midnight Friday in targeted work stoppages at plants in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri, the Wall Street Journal reported. UAW officials initiated the walkout after failing to clinch new labor deals with General Motors, Ford Motor and Jeep-maker Stellantis for about 146,000 U.S. factory workers. Bargaining went late into the night, but the two sides remained too far apart to avoid a walkout at the 11:59 p.m. ET deadline. Workers at Ford’s Bronco plant in Detroit, a Stellantis Jeep factory in Toledo, Ohio, and a GM pickup plant in Missouri were instructed to leave their posts, beginning what could be a series of sporadic walkouts done without notice at additional auto factories. The three targeted assembly factories, which combined employ about 12,700 hourly workers, build some of the companies’ highly profitable and sought-after pickup trucks and SUVs. Analysts expect the initial financial impact to be limited if the strike is short, but it could grow the longer the stoppages go on.