Epoch Times:
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on June 24 that calls for hospitals to publicly disclose the actual cost of services in an effort to improve price and quality transparency in America’s health care system.
According to the White House, at Trump’s direction, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will require hospitals to disclose service costs in an “easy-to-read format” and make such information more accessible to patients before they receive their care.
The president spoke for about 22 minutes in the Grand Foyer of the White House as he described the executive order as a “truly big action” that would “fundamentally” change the health care marketplace and keep costs down.
“This landmark initiative continues our campaign to put American patients first,” he said. “We will empower patients with the information they need to search for the lowest costs and the highest quality care.”
Trump said the “lack of price transparency has enriched industry giants greatly,” asking why the issue was not addressed already.
“This is bigger than anything we’ve done in this particular realm,” he said.
Or sure about this one. If you have insurance that the hospital accepts, then the hospital will only get what the insurance company will give them. I have hospital bills for 11k and insurance only paid them 2k. What needs to be shown is what the insurance company pays not what the hospital charges. I can see this backfiring.
@Anonymous – You have a good point. I don’t know that this will backfire, but it isn’t a complete disclosure, as you say.
A companion EO requiring the health insurance mob to provide an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) at the same line item level as the hospital bill would help.
That mob would fight that, because it would be a straightforward project to analyze a number of such EOBs from different insurers and policies to report on the negotiated prices for services that each pays. They’d sputter and cry about “proprietary information” and “trade secrets” for sure.
I once had a stress test — the heart test using a treadmill on steroids. I had a decent amount in the bank so I wanted to pay for it. I asked how much it was.
“We don’t know.”
I can understand they don’t know about anything else that might need to be done, but it sure seemed to me that they should know how much a damn stress test cost.
Open the Books (which is a great organization to which I have donated) just published an analysis of ‘non-profit hospitals’. For the top 82 the CEOs averaged $3.5 M salaries.
https://www.openthebooks.com/top_82_us_non-profit_hospitals_quantifying_government_payments_and_financial_assets/
I see no reason for hospitals to advertise their fees. The billed fee amounts don’t get paid by insurance companies. If you dont have insurance hospitals will negotiate or do it for free. Hospitals posting fees will scare uninsured from seeking needed health care.
As hospital CFO for decades ; it this is true, it is a great move!
Dan
Be not jealous
Just because an organization is non-profit, does not mean that the people who work for said organization should not be paid……..
all I know is that I want the same health care that I’m paying for Ruth Buzzie Ginsberg’s multiple cancers & Slo Joe Biden’s multiple strokes & subsequent brain surgeries
^^^ Is there anything left to work on??