Industry Voices - Price transparency Alone Won't Solve the Healthcare Cost Crisis

New rules for healthcare price transparency launched into effect on Jan. 1. So far, the results have been mixed. Only about a third of America’s 6,000 hospitals have fully complied. Among those that have, the approaches have been “scattershot,” according to Fierce Healthcare reporter Robert King.

At the root of this scattershot approach is a lack of compelling regulatory incentives. For a penalty of $300 per day - a cost easily covered by a single NICU visit - hospitals can avoid the overhead and expense required to create public data files disclosing service costs. This also allows hospitals to continue keeping their rates hidden from consumers - not to mention competing providers in their service areas- preserving their current pricing strategy and market dynamics.