In an executive order issued on Feb. 25, President Donald Trump reaffirmed his commitment to price transparency, signaling a more aggressive approach to making pricing data accessible to patients and enforcing the price transparency rules that were put into effect during his first term.
Previously, two major price transparency rules, which became effective in 2021, were issued jointly by the departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Treasury, and Labor [refer to Washington Highlights, Nov. 19, 2019, Oct. 30, 2020]. One rule required hospitals to publish the prices they charged to insurers for a set of 300 common services and a machine-readable file with negotiated rates for every single service the hospital provides, and another rule required insurance companies to publish a more comprehensive list of prices they had negotiated with health care providers. The executive order directs the HHS and the Treasury and Labor departments to ensure hospitals and insurers disclose “actual prices of items and services, not estimates” and take action to ensure “pricing information is standardized and easily comparable across hospitals and health plans” including prescription drug prices. Any new price transparency initiative would require regulatory action or legislation.