Price Transparency
Hospitals and health systems are committed to empowering patients and their families with all the information they need to live their healthiest lives. This includes ensuring they have access to accurate and timely price information when seeking care. Hospitals and health systems have made important progress in adopting federal price transparency requirements that require they both publicly post machine-readable files of a wide range of rate information and provide more consumer-friendly displays of pricing information for at least 300 shoppable services.
The AHA appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services鈥 hospital outpatient prospective payment system and ambulatory surgical center payment system proposed rule for calendar year 2020.
Next week, CBS News is slated to air a three-part series called 鈥淢edical Price Roulette,鈥 exploring medical costs, including hospital prices. The series is scheduled to run Monday, Sept. 23, through Wednesday, Sept. 25, on both CBS This Morning and CBS Evening News (watch a preview of the series).
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in its hospital outpatient prospective payment system proposed rule for calendar year 2020 proposes to require that hospitals publicly post on the internet a machine-readable file containing both gross charges and 鈥減ayer-specific negotiated charges鈥濃
Use AHA model letter to submit your comments to CMS by Sept. 27
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in its hospital outpatient prospective payment system proposed rule for calendar year 2020 proposes to require that hospitals publicly post on the internet a machine-readable file鈥
The AHA has developed a model comment letter that hospitals and health systems can use to submit comments to CMS about these proposals. Download the letter and use it to submit your comments to CMS by Sept. 27.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee in July passed legislation, The No Surprises Act (H.R. 2328), to prevent surprise medical bills.
AHA Ask: Policymakers should focus on assisting rural hospitals in their negotiations with payers and providing the incentives and resources needed to maintain鈥
UnitedHealth Group鈥檚 brief on hospital prices uses cherry-picked data and omits important facts to paint a misleading picture.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services July 29 released the calendar year 2020 outpatient prospective payment system/ambulatory surgical center proposed rule.
A recent American Enterprise Institute blog on hospital prices fails to capture the full story on how hospitals and health systems have slowed price growth.
Air ambulances charged an average four to 10 times what Medicare paid for their services in 2016, according to a study reported this week in Health Affairs.