New Hampshire’s Well-Established Price-Transparency Laws For Hospitals Shows Strategy Isn’t ‘A Home Run’
President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would force hospitals and insurers to be more transparent about their prices. But a look at New Hampshire, which has the oldest and most comprehensive transparency laws in the country, reveals a more complicated outcome. In other hospital news: how systems profit from the poor they're supposed to serve, drug shortages, and the struggles of rural hospitals.
The Wall Street Journal:
One State’s Effort To Publicize Hospital Prices Brings Mixed Results
As the Trump administration moves to make confidential hospital prices public, New Hampshire’s dozen years of experience with price transparency suggests what it may—and may not—accomplish. New Hampshire has one of the most comprehensive and oldest hospital price-transparency laws in the U.S. (Evans, 6/26)
ProPublica:
The Nonprofit Hospital That Makes Millions, Owns A Collection Agency And Relentlessly Sues The Poor
In July 2007, Carrie Barrett went to the emergency room at Methodist University Hospital, complaining of shortness of breath and tightness in her chest. Her leg was swollen, she’d later recall, and her toes were turning black. Given her family history, high blood pressure and newly diagnosed congestive heart failure, doctors performed a heart catheterization, threading a long tube through her groin and into her heart. Her share of the two-night stay: $12,109. (Thomas, 6/27)
Modern Healthcare:
Drug Shortages Drain At Least $359M From Health Systems
Drug shortages cost providers nearly $360 million a year in labor expenses, a new survey has found. Hospitals and affiliated facilities dedicate more than 8.6 million hours per year working around persistent drug shortages, according to a new Vizient survey of 365 health system employees polled from July to December 2018. The distraction resulted in at least one medication error for 38% of the organizations surveyed by the group purchasing and consulting organization. (Kacik, 6/26)
North Carolina Health News:
Legislators Offer Lifeline To Rural Hospitals Drowning In Debt
There’s a hospital in the middle of the state that’s about to go under, and it has a lot of people concerned. Some of them are at the General Assembly, where the Senate leader introduced a bill late in this session to establish a state-funded loan program for struggling rural hospitals. The budget compromise released Tuesday night includes about $20 million over two years in one-time money to fund the Rural Health Care Stabilization Act, pending approval of the bill. And the old Randolph Hospital in Asheboro, surrounded by shuttered textile mills, would likely be the first beneficiary. (Knopf and Hoban, 6/27)
