An Oklahoma bill would require hospitals and surgical centers to post prices for their most common procedures.
Republican Rep. Arthur Hulbert is sponsoring the Oklahoma Health Care Cost Reduction and Transparency Act of 2014, which would require hospitals and surgical centers that bill Medicaid to provide price information for the following:
• 100 most common diagnostic-related groups
• 100 most common surgical procedures
• 50 most common imaging procedures
The bill would requires providers to share the full price of the procedure that would be paid by a patient if no third-party payer assumed a portion of the charges. Providers would submit this information to the Oklahoma Department of Health, which would then post the prices on its website.
"The healthcare industry is the only industry I know of where the consumer is not aware of the costs of the goods or services before they access them," Rep. Hulbert said in the release. "If an individual is required to assume financial responsibility of a procedure, they should have some idea what the costs would be ahead of time."
The bill is filed for the upcoming legislative session.
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