Bill > AB338

Introduced Session

This bill creates several requirements for hospitals to provide cost information for certain items and services provided by the hospital. Under the bill, each hospital must make publicly available a digital file in a machine-readable format that contains a list of standard charges for certain items and services provided by the hospital and a consumer-friendly list of standard charges for certain shoppable services. “Standard charge” is defined to mean the regular rate established by the hospital for an item or service provided to a specific group of paying patients and includes certain price information, including the gross charge, the payor-specific negotiated charge, and the discounted cash price. “Shoppable service” is defined to mean a service that may be scheduled by a health care consumer in advance. If the Department of Health Services determines that a hospital is not in compliance with any of the price transparency requirements specified in the bill, the bill requires DHS to take certain actions, including providing a written notice to the hospital, requesting a corrective action plan from the hospital, or imposing a penalty. The bill establishes escalating penalties for violations of the hospital price transparency requirements specified in the bill based on the hospital's bed count, from $600 for each day in which a hospital with 30 beds or fewer violates the hospital price transparency requirements under the bill up to $10,000 for each day in which a hospital with greater than 550 beds violates the hospital price transparency requirements under the bill. The bill also requires DHS to maintain a publicly available list of hospitals that have been found to have violated any of the price transparency requirements specified in the bill. Under the bill, the list of standard charges must be available at all times to the public in a machine-readable format, must be displayed in a prominent location on the home page of the hospital's website, and must include certain information, including a description of each hospital item or service provided and any code used by the hospital for purposes of accounting or billing. Further, the list of standard charges must meet certain criteria, including that it must be available free of charge and without having to establish a user account or password, that the list is available without having to submit personal identifying information, that the list is digitally searchable, and that the list is accessible to a commercial operator of an Internet search engine as necessary for the search engine to index the list and display the list as a result in response to a search query of a user of the search engine. The list of standard charges must be updated at least once each year. Further, under the bill, the consumer-friendly list of standard charges for shoppable services must be publicly available and must contain standard charge information for each of at least 300 shoppable services provided by the hospital. The bill allows a hospital to select the shoppable services to be included in the list, except that the list must include either the 70 services specified as shoppable services by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) or, if the hospital does not provide all of the shoppable services specified by CMS, as many of the 70 services specified as shoppable services by CMS as the hospital provides. If a hospital does not provide at least 300 shoppable services, the bill requires the hospital to maintain a list of all shoppable services that the hospital provides. The consumer-friendly list of standard charges for shoppable services must include certain information, including certain price information and a plain-language description of each shoppable service included on the list, whether each hospital location provides the shoppable service and whether the standard charges included in the list apply at that location, and whether one or more of the shoppable services specified by CMS is not provided by the hospital. The consumer-friendly list of standard charges for shoppable services must meet certain criteria, including that the list is available free of charge without having to establish a user account or password, that the list is searchable by service description, billing code, and payor, and that the list is accessible to a common commercial operator of an Internet search engine as necessary for the search engine to index the list and display the list as a result in response to a search query of a user of the search engine. The consumer-friendly list of standard charges for shoppable services must be updated at least once each year. The bill provides that every time a hospital updates the list of standard charges or the consumer-friendly list of standard charges for shoppable services, the hospital must submit the updated list to DHS. Under the bill, DHS must monitor each hospital's compliance with the price transparency requirements specified in the bill by evaluating complaints, reviewing any analysis prepared regarding noncompliance, auditing the websites of hospitals, or confirming that each hospital submitted the required lists. For further information see the state fiscal estimate, which will be printed as an appendix to this bill.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Scott Allen (R)*,  Ty Bodden (R)*,  Janel Brandtjen (R)*,  Robert Brooks (R)*,  Barbara Dittrich (R)*,  Robert Donovan (R)*,  Cindi Duchow (R)*,  Joy Goeben (R)*,  Chanz Green (R)*,  Rick Gundrum (R)*,  Nate Gustafson (R)*,  John Macco (R)*,  Nik Rettinger (R)*,  Donna Rozar (R)*,  Michael Schraa (R)*,  Katrina Shankland (D)*,  Shae Sortwell (R)*,  Chuck Wichgers (R)*,  Julian Bradley (R),  Mary Felzkowski (R),  Rob Hutton (R),  Dan Knodl (R),  Chris Larson (D),  Steve Nass (R),  Duey Stroebel (R),  Eric Wimberger (R), 

Failed to pass pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 1 (on 04/15/2024)

Bill Topics

Official Document