Health Price Transparency Is Here
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How transparent are Texas hospitals with their health care pricing? 🏥
Room for Improvement: Health care prices can vary widely in Texas – even for the same service at the same hospital.
- Without transparent prices, it’s hard for employers to design high-value benefit plans and to let their employees know what they’re going to end up paying when they get care.
Rules & Regulations: To allow for more informed decisions about health care spending, federal law required hospitals to provide clear, accessible pricing information about their services beginning Jan. 1, 2021.
- Texas passed a similar law that went into effect in September 2021.
Facts & Figures: Working with data science firm January Advisors, we attempted to locate and download data for 644 hospitals in Texas. Here’s what we found as of April 2022:
- 31% of hospitals were mostly compliant with the law*
- Only 65% of hospitals had made pricing data available in a way that we were able to access it
- Many large hospital systems in Texas are missing key pieces of data, such as insurer-specific rates
- Comparisons between hospitals are often difficult or impossible due to the availability and formatting of hospital codes and insurer-specific information
- Our new online tool examines the differences in prices for the same health care services to help show price discrepancies.
- The adoption of a clear data standard that could encourage and improve reporting and provide researchers with better data for analysis (read full list).
*What Does “Mostly Compliant” Mean?
Health Care Costs 💰
Have you or someone in your household skipped or postponed medical care because of the cost in the last two years?
Take our short survey and let us know!
In the News 🗞️
Check out today’s editorial in The Dallas Morning News about our health price transparency tool.
Texas 2036 Testimony 🎥: Health Care Reform
Press Play: Senior Policy Advisor Charles Miller testified before the Select Committee on Health Care Reform on Aug. 4 about why the state should continue to expand health care transparency, its need to empower employers to join the fight, and more.
Join the conversation:
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