Several large Maine hospitals are not in compliance with federal transparency rules regarding online pricing and services information, according to a new report from the healthcare price transparency advocacy organization PatientRightsAdvocate.org (PRA).
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in charge of administering the Medicare and Medicaid programs, established rules in January 2021 requiring hospitals to publish clear and accessible pricing information about the items and services they provide.
The rules are aimed at making it easier for consumers to shop around and compare prices at various hospitals, and to estimate the cost of care before going to the hospital.
CMS has only fined 14 hospitals for violations of the hospital price transparency rules since they took effect.
PRA’s sixth Semi-Annual Hospital Price Transparency Report found that just two out of the five Maine hospitals reviewed are fully compliant with the federal transparency rules — up from just one compliant Maine hospital in the organization’s July 2023 report.
The report found that Maine Medical Center and Eastern Maine Medical Center are in full compliance with the rules, while Central Maine Medical Center, Saint Joseph Hospital, and Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center are not in compliance.
Common explanations listed in the report for the Maine hospitals’ noncompliance were failing to publicly disclose an adequate amount of negotiated rates, and failing to adequately identify specific plans for all commercial payors.
Nationally, just 689 out of 2,000 hospitals reviewed — 34.5 percent — were in full compliance with the rules.
Of the hospitals reviewed that are owned by the largest hospital systems (HCA Healthcare, Tenet Healthcare, Providence, Kaiser Permanente, Avera Health, UPMC, Baylor Scott & White Health, and Mercy), the report found that none were in full compliance.
“When hospitals don’t post their prices, they can charge whatever they want,” PRA founder and Chairman Cynthia Fisher wrote in a Feb. 29 letter to President Joe Biden.
“Americans are more likely to carry medical debt and face high healthcare costs,” Fisher wrote. “Systemwide healthcare price transparency would transform our broken healthcare system by giving all consumers – patients, employers, unions, and workers – access to actual prices and receipts for services and care.”
Fisher’s letter urges President Biden to support the recently introduced Health Care PRICE Transparency Act 2.0, bipartisan legislation sponsored by U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.).
The bill, which Fisher told Biden “represents a giant step forward for all Americans to know the prices up front and make well-informed healthcare decisions,” would require hospitals to make all negotiated rates and cash prices between plans and providers to be accessible.
A January poll conducted by Marist on behalf of PRA found that 93 percent of Americans agree that hospitals should be required to provide real prices in advance of treatment, not estimates, and that 3 out 5 Americans have put off medical care because they didn’t know the cost.
I do know that Northern Light – Mercy Hospital provides the deadly drug, Remdesivir, to treat COVID-19 patients per CDC guidelines at $1,100. per dose. (IVM & HCQ cost @ $10. but can’t be given). That’s all I want to know about their drug pricing but I’d like to find out what they’re subsidized for needless intubations plus how much of a bonus they receive from the Feds for issuing death certificates with COVID-19 as the primary cause of death.