Slow progress for state health care transparency laws

The Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3) released their annual report card on State Price Transparency Laws. While the overwhelming majority of states (43) received the lowest possible grade (F), a couple of states made progress since last year's report card. Only three states -- Colorado, Main, and New Hampshire -- received the highest grade possible, but two of them received a lower grade last year. Progress for health care transparency moves forward slowly, but it does seem to be moving forward. It will be interesting to see whether there will at some point be an inflection point where the rate will accelerate.

HCI3 grades states on whether they collect and publish payment data for medical services, including on whether or not the website is user-friendly. We agree that those attributes are positive, and hope that states will also consider releasing this data in machine-readable form so that other websites can innovate further.