New Report Shows Only 16% of Hospitals Complying with Hospital Price Transparency Rule

The semi-annual report issued by PatientRightsAdvocate.org is a detailed look at hospital compliance with price transparency measures required by law

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A new report released by PatientRightsAdvocate.org shows a vast majority of hospitals continue to hide the actual prices from consumers nearly 20 months after the Hospital Price Transparency Rule went into effect.

The transparency law went into effect January 1, 2021, to establish a functional, competitive market in healthcare allowing consumers to benefit from competition and through choice lower their costs of both care and coverage.

The latest Semi-Annual Hospital Price Transparency Compliance Report shows that just 16% of the 2,000 hospitals reviewed are complying with a rule, indicating that progress on hospital's compliance with federal law has slowed dramatically. PatientRightsAdvocate.org's previously released two reports, one in February 2022 (one year after rule) which showed 14.6% compliance, and one in July 2021 (six months after rule) which showed 5.6% compliance. 

"Unfortunately, after nearly 20 months of the Hospital Price Transparency Rule being in effect, the compliance rate has stalled, with only marginal improvement to 16% compliance up from 14.3% in our previous report," said Cynthia Fisher, Founder and Chairman of PatientsRightsAdvocate.org. "The quickest way to substantially improve compliance is through monetary fines which work, as our report shows."

The new analysis of 2,000 hospitals across the United States found:  

• Only 319 (16.0%) were complying with the rule.
• 101 hospitals (5.1%) did not post any standard charges file and were in total noncompliance.
• None (0%) of the hospitals owned by two of the largest hospital systems in the country – HCA Healthcare and Ascension Health – are complying.
• 45 of 111 (40.5%) CommonSpirit Health hospitals, the second largest hospital system in the country, are now compliant up from just 1 of 88 (1.14%) hospitals in the February 2022 report.

Earlier this summer, Fisher was featured on NBC Nightly News discussing the previous report. After the segment aired the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued fines for two hospitals with no pricing files. According to the report, both hospitals are now in full compliance and have exemplary files posted on their websites.

"It's alarming to see that progress on compliance with federal law on transparency has ground nearly to a stop," said Fisher. "With enforcement, fines, and transparent hospital accountability we will see the power shift to healthcare consumers and employers to lower costs. In this report we have outlined more than 100 hospitals that HHS could fine today based on criteria applied to the two hospitals they've previously fined. That is a great place to start."

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

SOURCE Patient Rights Advocate