ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10)- All U.S. hospitals are required to put prices online for all services as of January 2021. The federal law is to help people know the cost of health care expenses upfront and allow them to shop around for better prices.
Having prices online and easily accessible could help New Yorkers, who spend the fifth-highest amount on health care services nationwide, according to World Population Review. They said the price of health care services is growing faster than inflation. Prices grew by approximately 3.5%, based on the 2022 report.
Maine has the highest cost for health care services, $10,559 on average per person. However, District of Columbia residents pay the most nationwide, $11,944. New Yorkers pay $9,851.
A year after the Hospital Price Transparency law went into effect, just 14.3% of hospitals are complying, according to a report from PatientsRightsAdvocate.org released in February. The report said hospital pricing files were incomplete and non-compliant hospitals didn't show the different prices for services by insurance or plans accepted by them, nor cash prices.
It said 37.9% of hospitals sufficiently posted negotiated rates but were not in full compliance with the law, missing other required information. The report found that .5% of hospitals owned by the three largest hospital systems in the U.S. (HCA Healthcare, Ascension, and CommonSpirit Health) were complying with the law. Information was obtained by sampling 1,000 random hospitals.
