HHS can reduce inflation in the healthcare industry by strictly enforcing hospital price transparency requirements, Cynthia Fisher, founder of advocacy group Patients Right Advocate, wrote in an opinion for The Hill published Oct. 21.
Ms. Fisher wrote that HHS can follow President Joe Biden's directive to combat rising drug costs by enforcing hospital price transparency.
Laws requiring hospitals to disclose negotiated prices with payers went into effect in January 2021. So far, compliance with these laws has been low.
An August report from Patients Rights Advocate found compliance rates ranged from 34 percent of hospitals in Arizona to 0 percent of hospitals in multiple states.
"Robust hospital price transparency can put downward pressure on overall inflation by addressing its largest and longest-running source: outrageous healthcare costs," Ms. Fisher said in the opinion piece.
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