Approximately 2,000 hospitals out of more than 6,000 reviewed were highly transparent posting their payer-negotiated rates per the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) 2021 Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule. These hospitals scored a “5” on a price transparency evaluation scale from 1 to 5. The Price Transparency Final Rule requires each hospital operating in the U.S. to establish (and update) and make public a yearly list of standard charges for items and services, including diagnosis related groups. Remaining rankings are as follows:
- Four stars: about 26.7%
- Three stars: about 20.0%
- Two stars: about 13.3%
- One star: about 6.7%
In certain U.S. geographical areas, price competition may become a reality for commoditized shoppable services. Depending on driving distance, employers, referring health care professionals, and health care consumers might consider making cost-conscious decisions in regions with several in-network options.
These findings were presented in “The state of hospital price transparency, with pictures! (February 2021),” by Turquoise Health. Researchers for Turquoise Health analyzed more than 6,000 hospital websites; and standardized 1,500 machine-readable files into the Turquoise database. Nearly 1,000 shoppable services were included in the evaluation.
The full results in “The state of hospital price transparency, with pictures! (February 2021),” were published on February 12, 2021 by Turquoise Health. A free copy of the results is available at https://blog.turquoise.health/state-of-hospital-price-transparency-with-pictures/.
Contact information: Turquoise Health And Wellness, Inc., 202 East Earll Drive, Suite 200, Phoenix, Arizona 85012-2647; 602-808-2800; Email: info@turquoise.health; Website: https://turquoise.health/
