The administration’s health price transparency rule went live Jan. 1. We’ve been seeking out and assessing the results; you can find our previous blog posts with that reporting here and here. This post will go into some of the more obscure and messy points of the mandate, including hurdles to implementation, enforcement, definition and so […]
The administration’s health price transparency rule went live Jan. 1. Already, President Donald Trump is declaring victory. But did it work? Are hospitals complying? Does it matter for patients? Describing the new rules, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services say on their website: “Starting January 1, 2021, each hospital operating in the United States […]
The new federal price transparency law is rolling out Jan. 1, 2021, mandating that hospitals have to list prices on their web sites. Describing the new rules, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services say on their website: “Hospital price transparency helps Americans know the cost of a hospital item or service before receiving it. […]
So the Trump Administration issued an executive order on June 24, 2019, saying that it would set in place a process to make health prices available to consumers. Historically, of course, the prices people will pay to the doctor or hospital have been shrouded in secrecy — characterized as “trade secrets” by the hospitals, insurers […]
Seema Verma, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, called on Twitter a few days ago to help her enforce a new rule on health price transparency. The rule requires hospitals to post their list prices online. It went into effect on Jan. 1, and there was scant information about how it […]
The newly released hospital price lists have been kicking up a lot of commentary on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The lists, as we’ve been discussing, are being made public in compliance with a new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rule that hospitals have to post all their list prices online as of Jan. 1. […]
(Updated Feb. 9) Of course we support price transparency in health costs. We think all prices should be public all the time. So let’s examine the new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rule that hospitals should post their charges online in “machine-readable format” as of Jan. 1. This policy is a tiny step […]
We launched our new partnership with WNYC and Gothamist in November 2019, under the name “#PriceCheckNYC.” Our work has been featured on the Gothamist.com home page, and on Brian Lehrer’s show at WNYC. Read Caroline Lewis’s story about the project on Gothamist—for instance, ClearHealthCosts found that a cholesterol test at a lab in the Bronx […]
Epic, the giant electronic medical records company, is offering a price estimate button that doctors can use in the office. Kristin Cain, a reproductive endocrinologist in North Dakota, posted this on Twitter: “EPIC has a button I just discovered: Patient Estimate. After you place an order, it estimates the out of pocket cost. Except if […]
As seen in… click logo for story Coverage Highlights “Now health care is getting its Kayaks and Trulias.” Tina Rosenberg, “Revealing a Health Care Secret: The Price,” The New York Times. “People are demanding control over health expenses and treatments, trying to manage out-of-pocket costs and confusing bills, and seeking the care they need at […]