Price transparency laws for healthcare organizations were first implemented in 2021 and have progressively strengthened since, but have they helped patients?
The laws were introduced during President Donald Trump’s first term and require hospitals to publicly post their payer-specific negotiation rates. In 2022, a companion rule imposed similar requirements on insurers. And in February 2025, an executive order directed agencies to escalate enforcement further, requiring “actual prices, not estimates.”
The goal was to make it easier for patients to compare prices at hospitals. However, the results haven’t been so simple, NPR reported Feb. 10. Here’s what to know.
1. A study found that only a third of facilities complied with the transparency regulations in the first 10 months of implementation. Between 2022 and 2025, 27 hospitals were notified by CMS that they would be fined for lack of compliance.
2. What data is released by hospitals is often sparse or in confusing formats that require deep knowledge of billing codes. President Joe Biden attempted to improve this by requiring increased data standardization and toughening compliance criteria. CMS also increased the required details within pricing data. But hospitals argue they made “detailed assumptions about how to apply complex contracting terms and assess historic data to create a reasonable value for an expected allowed amount,” the American Hospital Association told the Trump administration in July 2025.
3. Patients are rarely the ones using this price data. Many simply do not compare services, while others struggle to make comparisons. Unlike other products, healthcare services rarely have a one-to-one comparison, and the medical treatment required isn’t always predictable. Some patients may require more interventions or emergency care, which cannot be price checked beforehand.
4. Instead of helping patients, price transparency data has primarily been used by health systems and insurers. Often this data has become the foundation of negotiations and lawsuits over the proper level of compensation.
5. In some cases, it’s also been used by providers who look at the data from comparable health systems and find themselves saying, “I need to be paid more,” NPR reported.
The post Are price transparency laws helping patients? 5 notes appeared first on Becker's Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis.
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