On November 15, 2019 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule requiring hospitals to publicly disclose “standard charges, including payer-specific negotiated rates for items and services. Hospitals will be required to comply by January 1, 2021. The proposed rule is subject to 60 days of comment.
The final rule requires hospitals to make public in a machine-readable file online all standard charges (including gross charges, discounted cash prices, payer-specific negotiated charges) for all hospital items and services. It requires hospitals to de-identify minimum and maximum negotiated charges for at least 300 “shoppable” services.
Multiple health care businesses have scored wins this year in their fight to prevent CMS from recouping payments before having an opportunity for an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) hearing. The similarity? They each sought a temporary injunction in federal court. Arguing that the alleged recoupments would cause the businesses to close, employees to lose their jobs and patients would be forced to change their providers, the businesses were granted temporary injunctions enjoining CMS from starting recoupment until the ALJ appeal stage had reached a conclusion.
When a healthcare provider cares for a patient, many times, the provider will set out directives for the patient to follow in order to live a healthier life. These changes may include changes in lifestyle, eating habits, and obedience in taking medications. A patient’s compliance with these directives instructs the provider on how to care for the patient in the future. A patient who does not follow these directives may suffer health consequences.
Similarly, the government sets out legal regulations for healthcare providers. The government expects healthcare providers to comply with its regulations, and providers who don’t can suffer consequences as a result. The regulations governing health care providers are vast and dynamic. In order to keep abreast of the changes in law, and to evidence an intent to comply with law, healthcare providers should strongly consider instituting compliance programs in their businesses.
Compliance with healthcare laws is important. Any number of consequences can result in the event that a healthcare provider is out of compliance—the most devastating being that the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”) has the authority to exclude healthcare providers from participation in Medicare and other federal health care programs. Ignorance of the law does not absolve a healthcare provider of liability.
Health law is the federal, state, and local law, rules, regulations and other jurisprudence among providers, payers and vendors to the healthcare industry and its patient and delivery of health care services; all with an emphasis on operations, regulatory and transactional legal issues.
By: Karina Gonzalez
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