On January 1st, 2019, a curious thing happened. Healthcare provider organizations started to disclose patient pricing on their websites. CMS identified for all US hospitals that they make a list of current standard hospital charges in a machine readable format. To those who know me well, know that I have been advocating this move for many years and I am glad that CMS finally focused in this for patients to see the cost of their care up front.
Check out https//s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2018-16766.pdf for more information.
Healthcare Interoperability 
a:hover { color: red; } a { text-decoration: none; color: #0088cc; } a.primaryactionlink:link, a.primaryactionlink:visited { background-color: #2585B2; color: #fff; } a.primaryactionlink:hover, a.primaryactionlink:active { background-color: #11729E !important; color: #fff !important; }
/* @media only screen and (max-device-width: 480px) { .post { min-width: 700px !important; } } */ WordPress.com
Exactly! Hard to say to consumers that they have to manage their own out of pocket costs, but consumers can't (or at least couldn't) know what the costs were until after the fact. It's maddening!!! And perhaps some competition will help lower overall healthcare costs…?
Thank Ajay.
Unfortunately, many organizations met the letter of the law by just posting their entire chargemaster to their website. Unfortunately, to most patients this information is completely useless due to the myriad of services, care, drugs and other items/services provided during an inpatient stay. So, the true intent of the law goes unmet because most patient’s still don’t have a way of truly understanding their potential out-of-pocket costs for an inpatient stay, surgery or outpatient procedure.
Perhaps once I get over the frustration of reading nearly 4,000 pages of proposed regulation already released in 2019, my thoughts above may change. Then again, CMS has another 6,000 – 10,000 pages of proposed regulation yet to release this year followed by nearly another 12,000 pages once the comment period closes on the proposed rules and the final rules are released.
Keep fighting the good fight Brother Sharma!