Posted on 08/07/2018 2:21:58 AM PDT by markomalley
Hospitals will be required to post online a list of their standard charges under a rule finalized Thursday by the Trump administration.
While hospitals are already required to make this information public on request, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said the new rule would require the info be posted online to "encourage price transparency" and improve "public accessibility."
Starting Jan. 1, hospitals will be required to update the information annually.
The CMS said it is also considering how to "allow consumers to more easily access relevant healthcare data and compare providers."
Increasing price transparency has been a priority for the administration as a way to drive down health-care costs.
"This is a small step towards providing our beneficiaries with price transparency, but our work in this area is only just beginning," CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a speech last month. "Price transparency is core to patient empowerment and making sure American patients have the tools they need so they can make the best decisions for them and their families."
Will they post the cash patient rate or the one for insurance and if so will they do it by carrier?
Hospitals negotiate rates w insurance companies. They have a contract with each one.
That may be a great idea and good move. Medical costs have been much of the problem.
Even if you are well enough to get care at home with help. They won’t release you from the hospital because the insurance companies will void the payment for the earlier days. Not health care. It’s hospital and insurance are.
D, I’m not on Medicare.
And the latest data for outpatient providers, to use that as an example, is for 2015.
D, I suspect prices have gone up a bit since then.
YEP! It’s like pulling teeth to get a cash price listing from most clinics and hospitals.
I know they are “supposed” to provide them upon request, but it’s like buying a damn car! You ask them what is the price of the vehicle and they ask you what kind of payments you want to make. You take them back to the price of the vehicle and they ask you about your credit. It is RIDICULOUS!
I think this will be a good thing!!
D, I should be able to call up a hospital, give them a code, and get a frickin’ price.
If this is Trump’s goal, I’m all for it.
Try pharmaceuticals...
These guys are raping the public. When politicians are bought by these interests, the career politicians make regulations so that there can be no competition; the first rule against free market enterprise. 15 year + patents make for NO competition. Then they make rules where these same companies can get additional patent rights for up to 20 years. And of course... “pay to delay” is another bone the law makers have thrown to this ravenous dog. Pharmaceuticals pay off, at the expense of the sick, other competitors in order to make sure they not to do anything.
Prices on drugs are killing this country and making a few rich at the expense of the sick. It’s the unfair and inequitable patent laws that need to be cut to like 5 years.
And how about the company that bought an already defunct patent for epi pens and then raised the price over 1000%. That patent was paid for by the taxes of our parents during WWII. What “swamp scum” authorized the sale of this patent?
Ah so you want someone else to do your work for you.
Didn't look at the spreadsheet, did you?
And good luck finding a community or religious hospital left... they are dropping like flies. Only places where they are the only hospital are they tending to survive and usually by operating in the red.
“D, I should be able to call up a hospital, give them a code, and get a frickin’ price.
Ah so you want someone else to do your work for you.”
So...how would you react if you called Lowe’s or Home Depot, asked the price of a 2x4x8’...and the clerk asked you “You want someone else to do your work for you?”
And every doctor’s office should have to post the prices of the top 10 procedures they bill for based on their individual practice.
Yup. This is a much bigger piece of WINNING than people realize.
Next we need to make them post their negotiated prices with health insurers. The $5000 procedure that your insurance company negotiates down to three hundred and ten bucks.
This is great news. Competition is what will bring down health-care costs.
If Drs & hospitals have to compete, THEY will find ways to cut costs in order to bring in the business.
I think hospitals are badly taking advantage of people, about the pricing of American healthcare.
In my area of Florida most hospitals seem to be gushing money. Opulent new facilities, in demand jobs, etc.
You don't even want to know what the employment costs are.
Believe it or not, this information is already available and your insurance provider has been using it for about six years.
Be wary of things being presented as “new.”
Someone else?! Dude, you have no idea how long I spent on the phone with those two hospitals trying to get a straight answer out of them. I am more than happy to do my own own homework, but I need Fedzilla and the bloody medical industrial complex to let me freaking do it.
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