For most Americans, the cost of medical services has felt like a carefully guarded secret. However, there has been a push in recent years for price transparency and we’re getting closer to it becoming a full reality.
Here’s Five Fast Facts on Hospital Price Transparency:
- 🏥 See? - The Hospital Price Transparency Rule went into effect in January of 2021. It requires every U.S. hospital to provide you with clear numbers online. They include standard charges, gross charges, payer-specific negotiated rates, de-identified minimum and maximum negotiated rates, and cash prices. Hospitals are also required to give you an out-of-pocket cost estimator for at least 300 shoppable services.
- 🚑 No Alarms - There’s also the No Surprises Act. It requires hospitals to give uninsured and self-pay patients estimates for most scheduled services.
- 🤮 Wait a Second - If you don’t know about this, you’re not alone. It seems hospitals aren’t in any hurry to comply. By January 2021, there were nearly 500 warning notices for non-compliance and over 230 requests for corrective action. Nearly 300 hospitals have addressed those issues.
- 🩼 But Why? - Part of the non-compliance comes down to the high cost of staff and hospital resources. And if you’ve been paying attention, the pandemic really spread most hospitals thin.
- 👩⚕️ Nope - The American Medical Association isn’t very happy about the entire movement. They claim price transparency can encourage collusion, bizarrely using the Danish government’s pricing for concrete/cement as an example. That one’s lost on me, too.
🔥Bottom line: Health care is a business in this country and that’s not changing any time soon. These two laws certainly help things, but it does nothing to lower the ridiculous cost that is associated with wellness.
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