NEW REPORT: Just 34.5% of reviewed hospitals fully compliant with federally mandated price transparency rule

WASHINGTON, Feb. 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, PatientRightsAdvocate.org (PRA) released a new report examining hospital compliance with the Hospital Price Transparency Rule, which went into effect over three years ago requiring all hospitals to publicly post all prices online.

PRA's sixth Semi-Annual Hospital Price Transparency Compliance Report revealed that only 34.5% of the 2,000 hospitals reviewed were in full compliance with the federal rule, virtually unchanged from the 36% compliance found in PRA's last report released in July 2023. Despite stagnant compliance, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued penalty notices to only 14 hospitals.

The report also includes links to the hospital pricing files for the 2,000 hospitals examined for the latest review, to allow for easy access and comparison by consumers, purchasers, technology developers, and other interested parties. Additionally, PRA recently created the Hospital Price Files Finder, a first-of-its-kind free and publicly available search tool that allows consumers and researchers to access the available hospital pricing files from nearly all 6,000 hospitals throughout the U.S.

In a letter to President Biden, PRA Founder and Chairman Cynthia Fisher wrote:

 "Our comprehensive study of 2,000 hospitals indicates nearly two-thirds (65.5%) of hospitals reviewed continue failing to fully comply with the rule, yet the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has only fined fourteen hospitals for noncompliance out of the thousands found to not be meeting all of the rule's requirements. When hospitals don't post their prices, they can charge whatever they want. We work with patients across the country who are struggling under the weight of unexpectedly high medical bills.

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"Fortunately, a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate by Senators Bernie Sanders and Mike Braun—and cosponsored by several other Democrats and Republicans—would strengthen and expand current healthcare price transparency rules. The Braun-Sanders Senate Health Care PRICE Transparency Act 2.0 (S. 3548) is a bill that deserves the full support of the Biden Administration.

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"The American people support efforts to lower the costs of healthcare through price transparency. According to a poll conducted by Marist for PRA, 94% of Americans support healthcare price transparency. This remains one of the most popular and unifying issues being considered in Washington today."

The latest review of 2,000 hospitals across the United States found:

• Only 689 hospitals (34.5%) were fully compliant with the rule.
• 1311 hospitals (65.5%) were not in full compliance with the rule.
• 87 hospitals (4%) did not post any usable standard charges file and were in total noncompliance.
• Substantial improvements since the last report include:
  • 100% of hospitals owned by Community Health Systems,
  • 93% of hospitals owned by Christus Health, and
  • 84% of hospitals owned by Advocate Health were found to be in full compliance.
• Of the hospitals reviewed, none (0%) of those owned by the largest hospital systems were fully compliant (HCA Healthcare, Tenet Healthcare, Providence, Kaiser Permanente, Avera Health, UPMC, Baylor Scott & White Health, and Mercy).
  • While 98% of hospitals owned by Kaiser Permanente were found to be fully complying in our last report, Kaiser now posts multiple files for each hospital, instead of a single file as required by the rule, so none (0%) of Kaiser's hospitals are now fully compliant.
• 135 hospitals exhibited 'backsliding,' with an assessment of Noncompliant in the current report after having been assessed as Compliant in our prior report.
• Analysis for this report found more hospitals posting multiple files, instead of the single file required by the rule.

You can view the full PatientRightsAdvocate.org price transparency compliance report here.

PatientRightsAdvocate.org is a nonprofit organization fighting for systemwide healthcare price transparency. We seek to empower patients and consumers with actual, upfront prices, greatly reducing healthcare costs through a functional, competitive market.

SOURCE Patient Rights Advocate