CMS proposes requirement that hospitals post prices online

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a number of updates to their regulations. Tucked away in the 1,883 pages was a proposal that hospitals publish their standard charges online in a machine readable format:

"As one step to further improve the public accessibility of charge information, effective January 1, 2019, we are updating our guidelines to require hospitals to make available a list of their current standard charges via the Internet in a machine readable format and to update this information at least annually, or more often as appropriate. This could be in the form of the chargemaster itself or another form of the hospital's choice, as long as the information is in machine readable format."

If this proposal goes into effect, the change will mark significant progress towards pricing transparency. This policy will allow third-parties to aggregate pricing information to better help patients select hospitals which might better fit their budgets.

Over time, it would be nice for third parties to have information on procedure bundles -- for example, if someone were to go to a hospital for labor and delivery, what would the typical bill include? (e.g. facility fee, anesthesiology). That bundling would better help patients compare packages across various hospitals. It would also be nice for not only hospitals to post their prices, but medical groups as well, so that patients can better navigate selecting a clinic for outpatient procedures (including office visits).