By MATTHEW DALE

Did you know that as of January 2021, price transparency is being mandated for hospitals? But what exactly does that mean for company healthcare plans, third-party administrators, healthcare sharing organizations, employers, and employees? 

It means U.S. hospitals are now required to provide clear, accessible pricing information online about the items and services they provide in two ways: 1) as a comprehensive machine-readable file and 2) in a display of shoppable services in a consumer-friendly format. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are already requiring hospitals to publicly display their negotiated rates with insurers along with the cash pay price for over 300 shoppable medical services.

For healthcare consumers, this should mean they can shop for the hospital that performs the best knee surgery or other medical procedure for the lowest cost in their area. Unfortunately, the implementation of price transparency has been difficult, to say the least.

The American Hospital Association and other industry groups have spent large amounts of money to block the rule but were unsuccessful. Now, hospitals are trying to get around the rules. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that hundreds of hospitals implemented website code to block search engines from returning results for price inquiries. 

Technically, hospitals are following the price transparency rule, but by deliberately hiding data from search engines or making it nearly impossible to find, consumers are unable to locate a hospital or surgery center they can afford. That’s just one example of how hospitals are avoiding price transparency. The AHA has made it clear they are not happy with price transparency and they’ll do whatever they can to avoid this new rule, but why?