On Jan. 1, nearly all U.S. hospitals were required to start posting the prices they negotiate with insurers for services ranging from a simple imaging exam to a complex heart surgery and everything in-between.
New federal regulations require hospitals to give consumers a way to examine the prices of 300 “shoppable” services, as well as offer a larger data file that includes all of the hospitals’ offerings.
Some hospitals have yet to unveil the data, despite the deadline and a potential fine of $300 a day for noncompliance.
But many have begun offering at least a peek, while not always making the data easy to find, even though the rule says it is supposed to be displayed publicly and prominently. Hospitals that have posted the data often put it on a page labeled with the term “price transparency.”
“Hospitals have a fair amount of discretion” on the format of the data they offer, said Nisha Kurani, a senior policy analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
