Bracewell’s Carrie Douglas told Law360 Healthcare Authority that President Donald Trump’s executive order to sharpen enforcement of healthcare price transparency regulations is a “warning bell that the enforcements are likely on the horizon.”
The executive order calls for the release of actual prices, not estimates. Federal agencies are also directed to issue guidance or take regulatory action to ensure hospitals and health plans produce data that’s easily comparable. But Douglas added “that desire really does not take into account how hospital pricing works.”
“I see the value of pricing transparency for elective care where you have time to comparison shop,” Douglas stated, “but most healthcare, while not emergent, has an urgency or time sensitivity to it that does not lend itself to the comparisons.”
