Price Transparency

Exploring Hospital Chargemaster Management Best Practices

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Recent healthcare price transparency rules have pulled back the veil on the hospital chargemaster, calling into question hospital chargemaster management best practices. Once considered a trade secret...

What Impact Will the Hospital Price Transparency EO Have?

by Jacqueline LaPointe

The Trump Administration touted a new executive order on hospital price transparency as a “historic action … fundamentally changing the nature of the healthcare marketplace.” But...

Healthcare Price Transparency Order May Up Prices, Hospitals Warn

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Public disclosure of negotiated contracts rates is a step in the wrong direction for healthcare price transparency, major hospital and payer groups are saying in response to a newly signed executive...

Patient Financial Responsibility Increased 12% from 2017 to 2018

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Patient financial responsibility increased by 12 percent for inpatient, outpatient, and emergency department care in 2018 despite consumers transitioning to lower cost settings, revealed a new...

White House to Issue Healthcare Price Transparency Next Week

by Kyle Murphy, PhD

The Trump Administration will issue an executive order on healthcare price transparency on Monday, according to the Wall Street Journal. Stephanie Armour reports that the Trump Administration...

Providers Oppose ONC’s Healthcare Price Transparency Strategy

by Jacqueline LaPointe

The devil is in the details according to major provider and payer groups commenting on strategies to promote healthcare price transparency in a proposed rule from the Office of the National Coordinator...

Top Hospital Chargemaster Management Vendors by Hospital Use

by Jacqueline LaPointe

The hospital chargemaster is the heart of the revenue cycle, capturing the costs of every billable service or item delivered at the organization. To keep the heart pumping, providers are turning to...

HELP Plan to Cut Costs Tackles Surprise Medical Bills, Transparency

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Leaders of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee recently unveiled their bipartisan plan to lower healthcare costs for patients by covering a wide range of healthcare...

Pre-Access Center Collects More Patient Financial Responsibility

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Since Jill Barton can remember Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital in New York has experienced financial challenges. But the non-profit hospital’s troubles were recently getting worse...

Hospital Prices for Private Payers 241% Higher than Medicare Rates

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Hospital prices for private payers were 241 percent of what Medicare would have paid for the same services, according to a new RAND Corporation study. The study of claims data from 1,598 hospitals in...

Healthcare Costs Vary Across and Within Metro Areas

by Jacqueline LaPointe

A new issue brief from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) uncovers dramatic variations in the healthcare costs for individuals under the age of 65 years old with employer-sponsored health...

How Practices Can Benefit from Healthcare Price Transparency

by Jacqueline LaPointe

In 2019, CMS mandated all hospitals in the US to publish a list of their standard charges online. The federal agency intends for healthcare price transparency to empower patients to make more...

Going Above and Beyond the CMS Hospital Price Transparency Rule

by Jacqueline LaPointe

As of January 1, 2019, a new CMS hospital price transparency rule requires all hospitals in the US to publicize what was once considered heavily guarded material: their chargemasters. Chargemasters are lists of all the services and items...

WA Makes Healthcare Price Transparency Consumer-Friendly

by Jacqueline LaPointe

How much does a knee replacement surgery cost at MultiCare Auburn Medical Center in Auburn, Washington versus St. Anthony Hospital in nearby Gig Harbor? Does EvergreenHealth Medical Center in Kirkland...

Industry Orgs Express Concerns with Healthcare Price Transparency

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Industry groups are cautioning a bipartisan group of Senators on the challenges and limitations of healthcare price transparency from the provider organization perspective after the policymakers called...

Senators Ask for Help with Quality, Healthcare Price Transparency

by Jacqueline LaPointe

A bipartisan group of six senators recently penned a letter to healthcare stakeholders calling for more information on healthcare price transparency to guide and inform a new legislative...

New CO Law Requires Providers to Give Patients Healthcare Prices

by Jacqueline LaPointe

A new healthcare price transparency law in Colorado now requires providers to give patients the costs of the most common procedures they perform. Patients should receive a list of the prices for the...

Hospitals Maintain Test Use Despite Healthcare Price Transparency

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Increasing healthcare price transparency for providers did not result in fewer laboratory tests ordered or lower healthcare costs, a recent JAMA Internal Medicine study found. “In this year-long...

CMS Adds 2 Compare Websites to Boost Healthcare Transparency

by Jacqueline LaPointe

In effort to increase healthcare transparency, CMS recently added two new healthcare organization Compare websites and updated performance data for existing hospice care, hospital, and physician Compare...