President Trump has made price transparency a centerpiece of his health care agenda. Friday he announced two regulatory changes in a bid to provide more easy-to-read price information to patients.
The first effort targets hospitals, finalizing a rule that requires them to display their secret, negotiated rates to patients starting in January 2021. The second is a proposal to make insurance companies show patients their expected out-of-pocket costs through an online tool. That proposed rule is subject to 60 days of public comment, and it’s unclear when it would go into effect.
“Our goal is to give patients the knowledge they need about the real price of health care services,” said Trump. “They’ll be able to check them, compare them, go to different locations, so they can shop for the highest-quality care at the lowest cost.”
Administration officials heralded both rules as historic and transformative to the health care system.
“Under the status quo, health care prices are about as clear as mud to patients,” said Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma in a written statement. “Today’s rules usher in a new era that upends the status quo to empower patients and put them first.”