U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH)

WASHINGTON – The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee advanced bipartisan legislation that U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan helped introduce to help patients better understand the cost of their health care before they receive it.

The Patients Deserve Price Tags Act would require hospitals, clinical laboratories, imaging centers, and ambulatory care centers to publicly post the actual cash prices they charge for all health care services. The legislation would also strengthen transparency requirements for health plans offered through the federal marketplace by requiring clearer information about coverage and patient cost-sharing responsibilities.

“No one should have to guess what a health care service will cost before getting the care that they need,” said Senator Hassan. “Too often, patients are left navigating a confusing system without clear information about what they’ll owe until after they’ve received care. This bipartisan legislation will help patients make more informed decisions by requiring greater transparency about health care prices and out-of-pocket costs, which will also help drive down costs as this transparency will allow patients to more easily compare prices at different health care providers for the same service.”

Current federal hospital transparency regulations require hospitals to post payer-negotiated minimum and maximum prices. The Patients Deserve Price Tags Act would go further by requiring providers to disclose their actual cash prices and requiring hospitals and insurers to give patients specific cost-sharing estimates in advance, giving patients clearer and more meaningful pricing information. The legislation builds on the No Surprises Act by clearly defining what information must be included in these estimates–including facility fees, a provision added at Senator Hassan’s request–to help patients avoid unexpected costs.

The Patients Deserve Price Tags Act builds on Senator Hassan’s ongoing bipartisan work to lower costs and make health care more affordable. Earlier this year, two of Senator Hassan’s bipartisan measures to lower prescription drug costs passed into law. The Increasing Transparency in Generic Drug Applications Act will speed the approval of generic drugs by ending the lengthy guessing game that manufacturers currently go through with the FDA, enabling generic drugs to get to market sooner, lowering prices for consumers, and saving taxpayer dollars. The Patients Before Middlemen (PBM) Act helps stop pharmacy benefit managers from driving up prescription drug pricing for seniors. Senator Hassan’s No Surprises Act was signed into law in 2020 to protect patients from receiving unexpected medical bills.