Healthcare

EXCLUSIVE: Gov’t Healthcare Price Transparency Push Seems To Be Working, Advocacy Org Says

A hospital room. (Screen Capture/PBS North Carolina Channel)

Patient Rights Advocate sent a letter to President Donald Trump on Wednesday touting his administration’s efforts to bolster healthcare price transparency in the U.S., the Daily Caller News Foundation first learned.

PRA’s letter partly highlights data from one of its recent reports, which found that 49.4% of U.S. hospitals are now compliant with federal transparency requirements, marking a major increase from the 21.1% compliance rate in November 2024. The nonprofit group’s letter also praises Trump’s “commitment to protecting patients with maximum price transparency and actual upfront prices across hospitals and insurers.”

“It is my privilege to share with you a copy of PRA’s Eighth Annual Hospital Price Transparency Compliance Report, which carefully evaluates the extent to which the nation’s hospitals are following the federal Hospital Price Transparency Rule you enacted in 2019,” according to PRA’s letter.

“Our report finds that 49.4% of U.S. hospitals reviewed are compliant with federal transparency requirements, the highest level to date and more than double the compliance rate revealed in our previous report in 2024, when it was only 21.1%,” the letter continues. “This progress reflects your focus on price transparency as a means of reducing healthcare costs for the American people, as detailed in your ‘Great Health Plan’ released earlier this year.”

The White House did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

However, the letter warns that some U.S. consumers may still be “kept in the dark” about healthcare prices.

“Despite the progress your administration has made to make up for the years of inaction from 2021 to 2024, it remains deeply troubling that approximately half of the hospitals we reviewed are found to be noncompliant with your Rule and hiding prices from patients,” per the letter. “More than 80% of hospitals do not even post actual dollars-and-cents prices for most of their items and services. In no other industry would it be acceptable for consumers to be deliberately kept in the dark about the price of the services and products they are purchasing. Healthcare should be no exception.”

In November 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized policies aiming to make U.S. hospital prices “more transparent for patients so that they can be more informed about what they might pay for hospital items and services,” according to a fact sheet from the agency.

Some lawmakers have recently called for greater healthcare price transparency amid rising costs.

“The vast majority of Americans want hospitals to disclose their prices upfront and be held accountable,” Republican campaign strategist David Kochel told the DCNF in a statement. “Yet, the majority of hospitals are still not complying with the federal hospital price transparency rule. This is an opportunity for this administration and candidates nationwide to support voters.”