Top Healthcare Policy news from the week: November 18.
The Trump administration’s finalized ruling for price transparency was released on the 15th.
Actual enforcement of the final ruling starts in January 2021, but there’s absolutely no question that it will be aggressively challenged in court.
Details of the Trump price transparency rule.
Like we mentioned back in July, the rule will force hospitals to disclose reimbursement rates by insurer for 300 common procedures in a machine-readable format.
Common procedures would include things like birth, outpatient surgeries, certain gastrointestinal exams, and more.
They’ll have to pay a $300 per-day fine if they choose not to release the info, which amounts to $110k per year. About the salary of an IT guy.
As you can imagine, this ruling is extremely contentious among payors and providers. Some experts don’t even think the finalized ruling is legal. Hospitals have already promised to take the Trump admin to court.
Lots of controversial topics this week, eh? Told ya healthcare isn’t boring.
- Here’s the finalized rule
- Here’s the other proposed rule that would affect health insurers.
Trump Admin delays the Vaping Ban.
In another twist this week, Trump is planning to delay the vaping ban after hearing from the industry and users.
While the administration wants to keep vapes out of the hands of children, Trump has also commented on vaping’s effectiveness in getting people to quit smoking.
And the last thing Trump wants to do in an election year is to hurt any jobs growth through vaping regulation.