Hospital Prices To Go Public By January 1st Deadline
Lafayette General Health will be in compliance with a new federal requirement that they post a price list for services by January 1, 2019. The new federal rule from the Department of Health and Human Services requires all hospitals to post a master list of prices for consumers to review before seeking treatment. Patient advocates are supportive of the plan, but worry the information may be too confusing for the average patient to understand.
According to LGH spokesman Patricia Thompson, the final price list will be added to the hospital website by the end of the week.
Here are the full requirements of the new policy from HHS.gov:
CMS’s proposed policy changes include:
- Requiring hospitals to post their standard list of prices on the Internet and in a machine-readable format, rather than just being required to make them available in some form
- Focusing the Electronic Health Record Incentive Program on promoting interoperability, to allow patients to control their records and access them in a usable format
- Eliminating duplicative. overly burdensome, or out-of-date quality measures through the “Meaningful Measures” initiative
CMS also issued a Request for Information soliciting comment on new ways to:
Stop “surprise billing” by providers
Provide
patients
better information up front about the out-of-pocket costs they will face
Encourage further transparency from providers, including providing tools for comparing prices and making public which institutions are out of compliance with transparency measures
Push providers reimbursed by Medicare to take more steps in making their electronic health records interoperable