New Price Transparency Rules Finalized
This week, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”), announced new finalized regulations aimed at strengthening the federal healthcare price transparency requirements. The rules improve the quality and usefulness of pricing data, increase transparency around in-network and out-of-network prices, and strengthen accountability for the accuracy of published information. The finalized rules also aim to lower administrative burden by lessening the reporting frequency of pricing information to quarterly.
Medicare Fixes Some Typos
Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) updated the 2027 Rule titled, “Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems for Acute Care Hospitals (IPPS) and the Long-Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System and Policy Changes and Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Rates; Requirements for Quality Programs; Other Policy Changes; and Adoption of Updated Versions of Certain Health Information Technology Standards.” The updated Rule aimed to correct technical and typographical errors that appeared in the original rule published in the Federal Register on August 4, 2026. The updated correction is effective October 1, 2026.
A PSO Gets Delisted
Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (“AHRQ”), delisted the “Hospital Rep Safety Solutions Corp.” from its list of patient safety organizations (“PSO”). PSOs can be “delisted” for three reasons: (1) by the Secretary if it is found to no longer meet the requirements of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (“Patient Safety Act”) and Patient Safety Rule; (2) if it chooses to voluntarily relinquish its status; or (3) when its listing expires. The AHRQ indicated it delisted the Hospital Rep Safety Solutions Corp. because it failed to correct a finding of deficiency.