The Business of Healthcare Podcast · Center for Healthcare Leadership and Management

The Business of Healthcare Podcast, Episode 114: Benjamin Fee on Hospital Pricing Transparency

·35 min·1 clip

Every hospital must post a machine-readable file with 80,000 items. Unless you have programs to download that data, it looks like nonsense—ones and zeros.

Dr. Bob Kaiser and health law attorney Benjamin Fee explore hospital price transparency rules mandated by CMS in January 2021. While the rule requires public posting of payer-specific rates and 300 shoppable services, implementation remains clunky: chargemasters contain 80K items (unreadable), price estimator tools are developing, and true consumer empowerment (guaranteed upfront, personalized pricing) remains years away. Discussion reveals policy-practice gap in healthcare's slow adaptation to transparency.

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