HFMA recommended to the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee that hospitals provide patients before-service estimates of their out-of-pocket expenses for specific medical procedures, taking into account their condition and insurance coverage. This type of pricing information is more meaningful to patients than a published list of average prices, said HFMA in submitting its comments for the record of the subcommittee’s July 18 hearing on price transparency in the healthcare sector. The letter from Richard Clarke, HFMA’s president and CEO, also described how HFMA’s PATIENT FRIENDLY BILLING® project is intended to assist hospitals in providing high-quality customer service standards in patient financial communications.
Clarke also outlined HFMA’s 11-step call to action to help providers embrace consumerism; the measures payers and employers must take to make price transparency effective; and recommendations to government to improve clinical quality, adequately fund care to end cost-shifting to other payers, and eliminate regulatory barriers to rational price strategies. Hospitals alone can’t solve the problem of accelerating healthcare costs, Clarke concluded. “Achieving meaningful price transparency is a vastly complex endeavor, requiring collaboration among government, providers, payers, employers, and the consumers themselves. It is up to stakeholders in the healthcare industry to work together and fulfill their mission of patient care.”
