Medicare Holds Off on Hospital Price Disclosure Fines for Now (1)

The Medicare agency is giving hospitals time to adjust to its price transparency rule, so far refraining from penalizing providers despite recently proposing to increase sanctions for those that don’t comply.

Hospitals have been apprehensive since the Trump administration announced they would be required to disclose standard charges for items and services in a final rule (RIN 0938–AU22) published in November 2019.

The vast majority of hospitals—94.4%—haven’t met one or more of the requirements since the rule took effect Jan. 1, 2021, according to a recent sample of 500 hospital websites conducted by Patient Rights Advocate. Right now many hospitals ...