Trump’s Executive Order Demands Accountability In Hospital Price Transparency

President Trump’s new hospital price transparency executive order directs federal agencies to enforce regulations that the president put into effect in his first term.

Trump’s action reflects a step toward enforcing long-ignored regulations, ensuring patients have access to relevant pricing information to make informed healthcare decisions. Without strict enforcement and meaningful penalties, hospitals will continue to resist transparency in the cost of services provided, preventing a competitive, value-driven healthcare marketplace.

The new order gives the Departments of Treasury, Labor and HHS 90 days to require hospitals and insurers to disclose actual prices, not estimates, issue regulatory action ensuring pricing information is standardized and easily comparable across hospitals and health plans, and update enforcement policies designed to assure compliance.

In a White House fact sheet, Trump was direct and to the point: “Our goal was to give patients the knowledge they need about the real price of healthcare services. They’ll be able to check them, compare them, go to different locations, so they can shop for the highest-quality care at the lowest cost. And this is about high-quality care … You’re looking at comparisons between talents, which is very important. And then, you’re also looking at cost.” Transparency in cost and quality are the only way for patients to understand the value they are receiving and compare it to other alternatives.

The move acknowledges a harsh reality: hospitals and insurers have repeatedly ignored these regulations, even after losing legal battles that went to the Supreme Court.

Research has consistently shown that most hospitals are failing to comply. A recent report from the HHS’s Office of the Inspector General found that nearly half of all hospitals failed to comply with price transparency requirements. The Biden administration did little to enforce these rules, fining fewer than 20 hospitals out of thousands, allowing them to bypass these consumer oriented regulations with impunity.

Transparency in cost and quality would have a major economic impact on a healthcare industry that continues to see costs rise without a corresponding increase in positive health outcomes. When patients can compare prices, providers lower costs to remain competitive. Empirical evidence has demonstrated that when patients use price information their total payments are lower for common medical services.

We comparison shop for everything else–why not healthcare? As I described in my book Bringing Value to Healthcare, new cars have stickers with information in a standardized format so potential buyers can compare one car to another–because the sticker is required. Food packages have nutrition facts and ingredient lists for the same reason.

When we’re in the market for a new television or car or groceries–important and sometimes expensive purchases–we act like informed consumers. We ask questions about product features and benefits; we comparison shop for the best value for our money and negotiate payment terms to get the best deal.

Why wouldn’t we apply these same principles in decisions regarding our most precious possession–our health? In healthcare, we’re expected to make decisions about what kind of surgery to have without so much as a common format to guide us, and little information about the cost and efficacy of the various options, or if surgery is even needed.

With price transparency regulations in place and enforced, it will help Americans become better patient-consumers, able to shop for providers that suit their needs, with relevant data to make informed decisions easily accessible.

Opponents of transparency argue that patients don’t have time to shop around when they’re having a heart attack or another medical emergency. That’s true, of course, but it misses the point. Transparency is for care that is planned and non-urgent, including MRIs, colonoscopies, knee surgeries, specialist visits, choice of primary care physician and myriad other scheduled medical procedures. These are not emergency helicopter rides to the hospital.

When people know a medical expense is coming, which is often the case, they should be able to make an informed financial decision. But transparency shouldn’t stop there. Patients need clarity not just on a single, isolated transaction, but on the broader costs of managing chronic conditions, coordinating treatments and understanding the total cost of their care over time.

As I said in a previous column, fixing price transparency will not cure all of healthcare delivery’s ills, but at a time when healthcare spending continues to spiral out of control, no entity should be allowed to ignore both the federal government and the courts by obfuscating the cost and quality of their services. Price transparency regulations must be strictly enforced. Hospitals have shown that they won’t comply otherwise; they must face real penalties for hiding prices and failing to report on the outcomes they achieve for the patients they treat.

There is no easy fix to get us to a new market-based model in healthcare, but greater transparency is a central feature along the path. President Trump’s recent executive order is a step in the right direction.

It’s time for providers and the broader healthcare delivery industry to be held accountable for meaningful transparency, so that patients, who must be active participants in their own health, are no longer kept in the dark when making critical decisions about their healthcare.