House, Senate Bills Provide ‘Firmer Roadmap’ for Payer Price Transparency

The Lower Costs, More Transparency Act (H.R. 5378), which the U.S. House of Representatives passed on Dec. 11, contains several provisions that would impact health insurance companies such as the requirement that negotiated rates between payers and providers become public. Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) has proposed similar legislation that would amend the Public Health Service Act and provide for more health care price transparency.  

Taken together with the implementation two years ago of transparency regulations for hospitals and insurers, the bills indicate “there’s a broad recognition that we’ve already moved forward in starting to make this data public, so let’s just improve that in a way that works,” according to Dania Palanker, assistant research professor at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms.