Proposal To Force Insurers, Hospitals To Disclose Secretly Negotiated Prices Stirs Such Vocal Opposition It May Get Dropped
President Donald Trump is working on an executive order intended to increase price transparency across the health care landscape. But one of the aspects to the order is provoking intense backlash. Compelling disclosure of negotiated rates “would have the ultimate anti-competitive effect,” said Tom Nickels, the American Hospital Association’s executive vice president for government relations and public policy.
The Washington Post:
White House Runs Into Health-Care Industry Hostility As It Plans Executive Order
President Trump is preparing to issue an executive order to foster greater price transparency across a broad swath of the health-care industry as consumer concerns about medical costs emerge as a major issue in the lead-up to next year’s presidential election. The most far-reaching element favored by the White House aides developing the order would require insurers and hospitals to disclose for the first time the discounted rates they negotiate for services, according to health-care lobbyists and policy experts familiar with the deliberations. (Goldstein and Dawsey, 5/29)
In other news from the health industry —
The Associated Press:
Insider Q&A: Doctor On Demand CEO Leads Primary Care Push
Hill Ferguson thinks telemedicine can become a routine option for patients, not just an easy way to handle middle of the night ear infections. The CEO of Doctor on Demand says primary care is a new frontier for companies like his that offer telemedicine, which involves seeing a doctor or nurse from afar, often through a secure video connection. His company is teaming with the insurer Humana to launch a new plan in Texas and Florida next month that connects some patients with employer-sponsored coverage virtually to a regular doctor licensed in their state. (5/29)
Modern Healthcare:
UHS Partners With Primary-Care Firm To Serve Plan Enrollees
Universal Health Services has become the latest health system to partner with a primary-care specialty company to provide intensive primary-care services to its health plan enrollees. The company announced Wednesday that it signed one of its first value-based payment deals with Seattle-based Vera Whole Health to operate two new primary-care centers in Reno and Carson City, Nevada, serving members of UHS' 100,000-member Prominence Health Plan. (Meyer, 5/29)
