2.2 Hospital Price Transparency

Overview

Bureaucracy often dictates rules and regulations. For example, to help consumers compare prices across hospitals and estimate the cost of care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published rules governing hospital price transparency. Hospitals are required to provide clear, accessible pricing information online about the items and services they provide in two ways:

• As a comprehensive machine-readable file with all items and services
• In a display of shoppable services in a consumer-friendly format

Noncompliance with the mentioned transparency rule may lead to the penalties and other legal actions defined by CMS.

This assignment will help you understand how bureaucracy plays an important role in forming and reforming the rules. Also, it will support your project work by helping you understand how policies and new rules impact stakeholders.

Prompt

Write a short paper focusing on the current hospital price transparency rule. Your research should include the rule enforcement strategy, how hospitals are complying with the rule, and the impact of this rule on the healthcare system.

You must cite at least three sources to support your claims.