News: Hospitals present oral arguments in AHA appeal of price transparency ruling

The American Hospital Association (AHA) is continuing to challenge the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule requiring hospitals to disclose their privately negotiated charges with insurers. After the lower court previously upheld the price transparency rule, a federal appeals court in Washington D.C. heard oral arguments from the AHA and hospital groups arguing against the HHS rule.

The price transparency rule requires organizations to post payer-negotiated rates for 300 services, with the aim of giving consumers a way to price shop among different hospitals for certain services.

In the hearing, HHS noted part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that requires hospitals to post their maximum cost for each service and item a hospital provides, which hospitals were required to post last year. The AHA said that HHS is stretching this meaning of the ACA by calling for the disclosure of payer-negotiated rates beyond the maximum cost for each service rates.

Counsel for AHA and the hospital groups finished by “urging the court to decide the appeal quickly because of the looming January 1 compliance deadline that the rule established and the unreasonable burden it places on the hospital field.”

Editor’s note: AHA coverage of this story can be found here. ACDIS coverage of the lawsuit can be found here and here.