On Monday, June 24, 2019, President Trump issued an executive order requiring HHS and other agencies to propose regulations designed to promote transparency and upfront disclosure by hospitals to patients of the charge prices of procedures and tests. Trump’s order also requires that patients be informed ahead of time of patient responsibility amounts such as deductibles and copays. The order does not set out the legal basis HHS or any other agency has to implement these directives and they likely will be subject to legal challenge if ultimately implemented.

The order gives HHS and other agencies 60 days to develop requirements and propose regulation on hospital publication of “standard charge information, including charges and information based on negotiated rates and for common or shoppable items.” The stated intent of the order is to allow patients to make “fully informed decisions about their healthcare,” and the order anticipates that the price transparency it calls for will lower costs by spurring competition among providers. It is unclear at this point whether the disclosure requirement will be more general in nature or extend to specific rates negotiated with individual payors. The latter has raised significant anti-competitive concerns among the provider community as payors will have access to confidential rate information negotiated by hospitals with their competitors.

The order further gives HHS 90 days to issue an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking requiring providers and insurers “to facilitate access to information about expected out-of-pocket costs for items or services to patients before they receive care.”

A copy of the executive order can be found on whitehouse.gov.