Medical price transparency toolkit unveiled by American Hospital Association

The consumer demand for price transparency is growing as patients pay more out-of-pocket expenses as deductibles rise.

The American Hospital Association last week released a price transparency toolkit for healthcare providers to help them provide more info to the public and meet requirements under the Affordable Care Act.

The ACA requires hospitals to report annually and make public a list of hospital charges for items and services.

The consumer demand for price transparency is growing as patients pay more out-of-pocket expenses as deductibles rise. The surge in  high-deductible health plans is also driving patient consumerism.

According to the AHA, different price transparency frameworks are needed for different groups.

[Also: How consumerism is changing revenue cycle]

For insured patients, health plans should be the main source of price information. While for uninsured and out-of-network patients, providers should be the main source of price information, the AHA said.

To achieve greater transparency, hospitals must prioritize price transparency to better understand the patient’s experience. One way would be to conduct a secret shopper exercise within the organization or consider having a transparency ombudsman to coordinate activities.

Technology cannot be the only tool, according to the AHA. Training, scripting and direct communication is needed.

[Register for the Revenue Cycle Solutions Summit]

Forty-two states now report information on hospital charges or payment rates and make that information available to the public, according to the AHA. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services posts on its website average hospital-specific charges per patient and average Medicare payments for the most common diagnosis-related groups, as well as 30 ambulatory procedures, according to an AHA report.

The AHA  toolkit, “Achieving Price Transparency for Consumers: A Toolkit for Hospitals,” features a self-assessment checklist to identify areas in which organizations are doing well and where they may need to improve.

The AHA will update the toolkit with new price transparency tools and resources as they become available.

The AHA said it challenges hospitals to find the best ways to share meaningful pricing information with consumers that is easy to access, understand and use; creates common definitions and language describing hospital price information for consumers; explains how and why the price of patient care can vary; encourages patients to include price information as just one factor, along with quality and safety, when making decisions about hospitals and health plans; and directs patients to more information about financial assistance with their hospital care.

Twitter: @SusanMorseHFN