California Hospitals Off the Hook for Emergency Room Fee Warning

Hospitals don’t need to warn patients before treating them that they’ll be charged emergency room fees, the California Supreme Court held Monday.

“A reasonable person would likely know that getting evaluated in a hospital emergency room is not free,” Associate Justice Goodwin Liu wrote for the court.

It’s possible that requiring hospitals to make such a disclosure “would risk discouraging patients from seeking emergency care and would put patients in the position of evaluating for themselves whether emergency services, at a particular cost, are warranted in a given circumstance,” the opinion said.

State and federal law determines what pricing information ...