This week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule that includes updates to the hospital price transparency rule. To increase compliance, the new rule would significantly raise the civil monetary penalties for price transparency violations based on hospital size.
Small hospitals (30 or fewer beds) would now pay a $300/day minimum, instead of $300 being the daily maximum. Large hospitals (over 30 beds) would be paying $10/bed/day with the daily cap at $5,500. For hospitals that fail to make prices public, the CMS proposed rule now places the lowest possible annual penalty at $109,500 and the greatest annual penalty as high as $2 million.
The new rule also proposed to restrict barriers to accessing machine-readable files, such as through direct downloads and automated searches.
To access the CMS proposed rule, click here.
