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Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

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Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

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Wall Street Journal Investigation Finds Computer Code on Hospitals’ Websites That Prevents Prices from Being Shown by Internet Search Engines, Circumventing Federal Price Transparency Laws

In a letter, Congress urged the HHS Secretary to conduct “vigorous oversight and enforces full compliance with the final rule”

Analysis of more than 3,100 hospital websites by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has found “hundreds” containing embedded code that prevents search engines from displaying the hospitals’ prices. This is contrary to the Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule (84 FR 65524), passed in November 2019, which requires hospitals to “establish, update, and make public a list of their standard charges for the items and services that they provide,” including clinical laboratory test prices.

“Hundreds of hospitals embed code in their websites that prevented Alphabet Inc.’s Google and other search engines from displaying pages with the price lists,” the WSJ reported. “Among websites where [the WSJ] found the blocking code were those for some of the biggest US healthcare systems and some of the largest hospitals in cities including New York and Philadelphia.”

Additionally, the WSJ found hospitals were finding ways to “hide” the price lists they did display deep within their websites. The prices can be found, but the effort involves “clicking through multiple layers of pages,” on the providers’ websites, the WSJ added.

Lawmakers Put Pressure on CMS

The WSJ report drew the attention of federal lawmakers who weighed in on the current state of hospital price transparency and on the WSJ’s findings in a letter to Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the federal Department Health and Human Services (HHS).

In their letter, members of the Congressional Committee on Energy and Commerce called for HHS “to revisit its enforcement tools, including the amount of civil penalty, and to conduct regular audits of hospitals for compliance.”  

Committee members wrote, “The Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule requires hospitals to make public a machine-readable file containing a list of all standard charges for all items and services and to display charges for the hospital’s 300 most ‘shoppable’ services in a consumer-friendly format. We are concerned about troubling reports of some hospitals either acting slowly to comply with the requirements of the final rule or not taking any action to date to comply.”

The letter, which was signed by the committee’s Chairman Frank Pallone (D, New Jersey) and Committee Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R, Washington State), cited the WSJ investigation as well as other analyses of price transparency at US hospitals.

Cynthia Fisher founder of Patient Rights Advocate
Cynthia Fisher (above), founder of Patient Rights Advocate, told The Wall Street Journal, “In the past there was absolutely no power for the consumer. It was like highway robbery being committed every day by the healthcare system.” Now, Fisher added, “it’s the American consumer who is going to drive down the cost of care.” Clinical laboratories will note that consumer demand for, and federal regulation of, price transparency is not limited to hospitals. All healthcare providers need procedures in place that comply with federal guidelines for transparency. (Photo copyright: Morning Consult.)

Additional Studies Show Major Hospitals “Non-Compliant”

One such study cited by the Congressional committee in its letter to HHS was conducted by Health Affairs, which looked into transparency compliance at 100 hospitals. In a blog post, titled, “Low Compliance from Big Hospitals on CMS’s Hospital Price Transparency Rule,” the study authors wrote “our findings were not encouraging: Of the 100 hospitals in our sample, 65 were unambiguously noncompliant.

“Of these 65,” they added:

  • “12/65 (18%) did not post any files or provided links to searchable databases that were not downloadable.
  • “53/65 (82%) either did not include the payer-specific negotiated rates with the name of payer and plan clearly associated with the charges (n = 46) or were in some other way noncompliant (n = 7).

“We are troubled by the finding that 65 of the nation’s 100 largest hospitals are clearly noncompliant with this regulation. These hospitals are industry leaders and may be setting the industrywide standard for (non)compliance; moreover, our assessment strategy was purposefully conservative, and our estimate of 65% noncompliance is almost certainly an underestimate,” Health Affairs concluded.

A previous similar investigation by The Washington Post called compliance by hospitals with the pricing disclosure rules “spotty.”

In “The Health 202: Hospitals Drag Feet on New Regulations to Disclose Costs of Medical Services,” Ge Bai, PhD, Associate Professor of Practice, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, an expert on healthcare pricing, wrote, “Hospitals are playing a hide-and-seek-game. Even with this regulation, most of them are not being fully transparent.”  

Are Hospitals Confused by the Final Rule?

So, why is complying with the federal price transparency rule so challenging for the nation’s largest hospitals? In its reporting on the Wall Street Journal analysis, Gizmodo wrote, “we’ve seen healthcare providers struggle to implement the new law due, in part, to how damn ambiguous it is. Past reports have pointed out that the vague requirements hoisted onto hospitals as part of these new rules often result in these pricing lists being difficult—if not downright—impossible to find, even if the lists are technically ‘machine-readable’ and ‘on the internet.’”

“Meanwhile,” Gizmodo continued, “as [the WSJ] points out, the order doesn’t specify exactly how much detail these hospitals are even supposed to offer on their pricing sheets—meaning that it’s up to the hospitals whether they want to include rates pertaining to specific health insurance plans, or whether they want to simply include different plan’s rates in aggregate.”

And in their letter to HHS, the Congressional committee wrote, “… some hospitals are providing consumers a price estimator tool instead of providing the full list of charges and payer-negotiated rates in one file, and some are making consumers fill out lengthy forms for estimates. Some hospitals also are providing the data in a non-useable format or failing to provide the codes for items and services.”

Clinical Laboratories Must Comply with Price Transparency Rules

Clearly, transparency in healthcare has a long way to go. Nevertheless, hospital medical laboratory leaders should expect reinforcing guidance from CMS on making price information on commonly used clinical laboratory tests fully accessible, understandable, and downloadable.  

As Dark Daily noted in previous coverage, consumer demand for price transparency is only expected to increase. Clinical laboratories need to have a strategy and process for helping consumers and patients see test prices in advance of service.

—Donna Marie Pocius

Related Information:

Hospitals Hide Pricing Data from Search Results

Coding to Hide Health Prices from Web Searches is Barred by Regulators

CMS Bands Coding Hospitals Use to Hide Prices from Web Searches

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Letter to Xavier Becerra, HHS Secretary

Low Compliance from Big Hospitals on CMS’s Hospital Price Transparency Rule

The Health 202: Hospitals Drag Feet on New Regulation to Disclose Costs of Medical Services

Hospitals are Reportedly Hiding Federal Mandated Pricing Data from Search Engines

Hospitals Post Previously Secret Prices but Good Luck Trying to Find Them

Nation’s 100 Most Expensive U.S. Hospitals Identified by National Nurses United—It’s Another Peek at Providers’ Prices That May Include Clinical Laboratory Tests

It turns out that Florida, California, and Texas have the largest number of hospitals on the list

Are you curious about which hospitals in the United States charge the highest prices? A new list of the 100 most expensive U.S. hospitals has the answers. The list was compiled in an effort to provide greater price transparency. Not surprisingly, the highest-priced hospitals are likely to also have some of the highest clinical laboratory test prices.

The study was conducted by National Nurses United (NNU), the largest nurses union in the country, and the Institute for Health & Socio-Economic Policy (IHSP). Researchers used the information from Medicare cost reports that included hospital charges and costs for fiscal year 2012. (more…)

Well-known Journalist Blasts Hospitals, Drug Makers, and Device Manufacturers for Lack of Transparent Prices and High Cost of Medical Care

Public scrutiny of exorbitant hospital ‘chargemaster’ prices for health services and medical laboratory tests is growing

Publication by Time Magazine of an in-depth investigation of the exorbitant prices charged to patients by many hospitals continues to cause a stir among both healthcare policymakers and patient advocates. Clinical laboratory executives and pathologists should take note of this public debate.

The exposé was published by Time on March 4 under the title “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us”. It was authored by prominent journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill, the founder of Court TV. Dark Daily suggests that this is useful reading for pathologists and clinical laboratory managers who want to stay abreast of the trend to provide patients with greater transparency in hospital prices and outcomes. (more…)

Medicare Officials Post Prices of 3,000 Hospitals in Effort to Raise Consumer Awareness of Arbitrary Hospital Pricing

Goal is to provide transparency to help consumers shop for hospitals; experts predict more transparency in healthcare prices, including for clinical laboratory and pathology testing

For the first time ever, a federal agency has posted on the Internet the prices hospitals charge for healthcare services specifically to help consumers price shop when they select a hospital. This is a major development and has direct implications for clinical laboratories and pathology groups that are based in hospitals and health systems.

On May 8th, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the availability of hospital-specific cost data for inpatient services at 3,000 hospitals. The data are now available on the Medicare Website. (more…)

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