Study shows few hospitals abide by price transparency laws
(The Center Square) – A new study shows hospital price transparency requirements continue to lag around Illinois and the rest of the country.
Federal law requires hospitals to be more transparent about prices by posting the numbers in various capacities, but a study by PatientRightsAdvocate.org (PRA) shows it rarely happens.
“One year after this law making hospitals show prices came into effect, unfortunately, we found that only 14.3% of our country’s 1,000 of 6,000 hospitals are complying with this law,” PRA founder and CEO Cynthia Fisher said.
The law required hospitals to post prices for all services, including gross charges and discounted cash prices.
In addition, the rule requires the information to be available in two formats, a machine-readable file that contains pricing data for third parties to compare between hospitals and a shoppable service list that displays specific services offered at the facility.
Fisher said many would be surprised at the difference in prices for the same procedure between two hospitals.
“There are wide price variations,” Fisher said. “An MRI can cost sometimes ten times more depending on your health insurance plan.”
Hospitals are apparently also ignoring drug price transparency. Nearly 85% of hospitals failed to provide the national drug codes and associated prices for each of the drugs and pharmacy items offered.
The study showed only three out of 11 Illinois hospitals are fully complying with the law. They include Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Rush Copley Medical Center and Rush University Medical Center.
A request for comment from Carle Foundation Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center, two of the hospitals on the non-complying list, went unanswered.
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