Hospital Price Transparency and Disclosure Act

Hospital Price Transparency and Disclosure Act

This bill specifies the format that hospitals must disclose the standard charges for items and services by requiring them to submit such charges to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and requiring the CMS to post the charges on its website.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3965 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 3965

 To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for enhancements to 
       requirements for public disclosure of hospital price data.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 25, 2019

 Mr. Lipinski introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                    Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for enhancements to 
       requirements for public disclosure of hospital price data.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Hospital Price Transparency and 
Disclosure Act''.

SEC. 2. ENHANCING PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF HOSPITAL PRICE DATA.

    Section 2718(e) of the Public Health Service Act is amended--
            (1) by striking ``Charges.--Each hospital'' and inserting 
        ``Charges.--
            ``(1) In general.--Each hospital''; and
            (2) by adding at the end the following new paragraphs:
            ``(2) Format.--The guidelines developed under paragraph (1) 
        shall provide that all standard charges described in paragraph 
        (1) are published in a uniform, machine-readable format.
            ``(3) Public posting of data.--
                    ``(A) Public posting of data.--The guidelines 
                developed under paragraph (1) shall provide that the 
                standard charges described in paragraph (1) shall be 
                made public by hospitals through a process specified by 
                the Secretary under which the standard charges are 
                submitted by the hospitals to the Secretary and the 
                Secretary promptly posts the standard charges on the 
                official public Internet site of the Department of 
                Health and Human Services. Such data shall be set forth 
                in a manner that promotes charge comparison among 
                hospitals and in a manner that compares the price data 
                for an item or service submitted by the hospital with 
                the price payable for the same item or service under 
                title XVIII of the Social Security Act.
                    ``(B) Access.--In carrying out subparagraph (A), 
                the Secretary shall create application programming 
                interfaces and take any other necessary steps to 
                facilitate access to data submitted pursuant to 
                paragraph (1) to third parties seeking to present such 
                data in a consumer-friendly format.
                    ``(C) Notice of availability.--Each hospital 
                required to submit data under this subsection shall 
                prominently post at each admission site of the hospital 
                a notice of the availability of the data so submitted 
                on the official public Internet site under subparagraph 
                (A).
            ``(4) Civil monetary penalty.--The Secretary may impose a 
        civil monetary penalty of not more than $10,000 for each 
        knowing violation of paragraph (1) or (3)(C) by a hospital. The 
        provisions of subsection (i)(2) of section 351A shall apply 
        with respect to civil monetary penalties under this paragraph 
        in the same manner as such provisions apply to civil monetary 
        penalties under subsection (i)(1) of such section.
            ``(5) Method for determining actual charge.--Not later than 
        18 months after the date of the enactment of the Hospital Price 
        Transparency and Disclosure Act, the Secretary shall pursuant 
        to rulemaking develop a method to determine and make publicly 
        available information on total amounts actually negotiated for 
        and charged by a hospital to patients for the items and 
        services appearing on its standard charge list, and accepted by 
        the hospital as payment in full. In determining the method for 
        the disclosure of such negotiated charges, the Secretary may 
        take steps to reduce the risk of the anti-competitive use of 
        such data or market collusion, such as by using averages, 
        ranges, rankings, trends, or other means as the Secretary 
        determines reasonable.
            ``(6) Reports.--Beginning not later than 18 months after 
        the date of the enactment of the Hospital Price Transparency 
        and Disclosure Act, and annually thereafter, the Secretary 
        shall make public on the Internet site described in paragraph 
        (3)(A) a report analyzing trends in standard and negotiated 
        charges over time, analyzing trends in standard and negotiated 
        rates relative to Medicare payments, and providing 
        recommendations as needed on statutory changes to increase 
        medical price transparency and public insight into health care 
        pricing.''.
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