Latest news with #PatientRightsAdvocate.org
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Attorney general targets 2 Florida hospitals over lack of price transparency
Attorney General James Uthmeier issued subpoenas Friday to Florida-based hospitals to ensure they comply with price transparency laws. 'Patients are still consumers, and they deserve transparency,' Uthmeier said in a video posted on X. 'The big healthcare industry complex continues to rake in billions off Americans in their most vulnerable moments. We must protect patients.' Uthmeier said under Florida law, a hospital's failure to provide price disclosure may constitute an unfair and deceptive trade practice. He said his subpoenas are related to patient charges, disclosures, billing practice, price transparency and surprise billing protections. The attorney general said his investigation is in line with President Donald Trump's price transparency executive order. Patient advocacy groups in Florida have been pushing for more price transparency. 'Hospitals have hidden their prices yet have forced patients to sign a blank check before they can get care,' said Cynthia A. Fisher, founder and chairman of a nonprofit focused on healthcare price transparency. 'As long as prices have been hidden, hospitals have been able to charge whatever they want. The attorney general's action aims to protect patients by providing actual, upfront prices. This investigation will protect Floridians from hospitals' predatory practices, prevent overcharges, and make bills accountable.' Uthmeier's subpoenas were delivered to Southern Baptist Hospital of Florida in Jacksonville and Adventist Health (Advent Health) in Central Florida, according to the advocacy group. released its seventh semi-annual Hospital Price Transparency Report in fall 2024, which examined 2,000 hospitals' compliance with the federal Hospital Price Transparency Rule. The November 2024 report indicates that only 29% of hospitals in Florida were fully compliant with the federal price transparency rule, a drop from 41% in February 2024. Only 39 of 135 Florida hospitals reviewed were fully complying with the rule. 'By keeping their prices hidden, hospitals continue to block American consumers from their right to compare prices and protect themselves from overcharges,' Fisher said. 'During a patient's most vulnerable hour, all too often, hospitals require them to sign contracts accepting full financial responsibility without acknowledging any prices. Florida law clearly states that unfair and deceptive acts and practices are 'unlawful,' which include omitting material information like prices. Yet, that is exactly what Florida hospitals have been doing.' Florida Health Price Finder is a state-operated website developed by the Agency for Health Care Administration to show prices of common services. South Florida Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
PatientRightsAdvocate.Org Applauds Florida Attorney General's Bold Action to Protect Healthcare Consumers
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., May 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, (PRA) applauded Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier for formally opening an investigation into the deceptive and predatory practices of Florida hospitals flouting state law and federal price transparency rules. "Hospitals have hidden their prices yet have forced patients to sign a blank check before they can get care. As long as prices have been hidden, hospitals have been able to charge whatever they want," said Cynthia A. Fisher, Founder and Chair of PRA. Florida law states that unfair and deceptive acts and practices are "unlawful," which include omitting material information like prices. Yet, hospitals often require patients to sign contracts accepting full financial responsibility without any knowledge of prices. "The Attorney General's action seeks to protect patients through actual upfront prices. This investigation will protect Floridians from hospitals' predatory practices, prevent overcharges, and make bills accountable," continued Fisher. "Ultimately, these consumer protections will help Americans to lower their costs." The Attorney General's investigation is in line with President Trump's historic price transparency executive order that requires real, upfront prices, not estimates, which will empower consumers with competition and choice, and lower the cost of healthcare. Background: Across Florida, some hospitals have charge-to-cost ratios showing charges over 10x the hospital's cost. In 2021, non-profit Advent Health Orlando made news for billing a patient with insurance over half a million dollars following her son's birth. After a press inquiry, the hospital lowered the bill to just $300 total. In PRA's latest Hospital Price Transparency report, only 29% of Florida hospitals reviewed were in full compliance with the federal price transparency rule, and only 3% posted sufficient pricing data for consumers to shop and compare. Wide price variation is prevalent nationwide. Last week, CMS took steps to reveal all actual prices to consumers so they can identify the vast variation and make informed decisions. Price transparency has received wide bipartisan support in Congress and from Americans nationwide. According to a new poll by PRA, 96% of voters agree that Americans "deserve to know the price of their healthcare before they receive it." Economists agree that healthcare price transparency would save up to $1 trillion in the American economy annually. About PRA: (PRA) is a leading national healthcare price transparency organization dedicated to ushering in systemwide transparency through advocacy, testimony, media, legal research, and grassroots campaigns. PRA believes that the availability and visibility of actual, upfront healthcare prices will greatly lower costs for patients and employers through a functional, competitive healthcare marketplace. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Patient Rights Advocate
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Facing sky-high medical bills? Your hospital may have overcharged you
After Blake Pfeifer, a veteran plumber in Colorado Springs, Colorado, underwent emergency stomach surgery at a nearby nonprofit hospital in 2022, he struggled to understand the bills flooding in for his weeklong stay. The initial charge for the procedure at the University of Colorado Health Memorial Hospital Central was $104,000, his records show. Because Pfeifer had no insurance and would be paying out of pocket, he was quoted a discounted price of $58,124. He said he called the hospital to get clarity on the bills but got nowhere. He began paying some of them and was pursued by a collection agency on others. Then he sought the help of a patient advocacy group. 'I've always paid my bills,' Pfeifer, 63, said. 'I wanted a little better explanation.' The group he worked with, Patient Rights found that some of his charges were far higher than the amounts UCHealth reported under a federal price transparency rule that went into effect in 2021. And that wasn't the only notable finding: Only 25% of Pfeifer's charges showed up on the hospital's required price list and therefore could not be compared at all. Pfeifer's experience is not uncommon, according to patient advocates, public interest lawyers and Medicare data. The burden of medical debt, a problem faced by 100 million Americans, has pushed many to delay medical care and even file for bankruptcy, research shows. Making these obligations even more ruinous, patient advocates say, is that many may be based on inaccurate health care bills. These discrepancies occur even as hospitals must list prices for care on their websites. The price transparency rule, initiated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, requires facilities to 'establish, update, and make public a list of all standard charges for all items and services.' Implemented under the first Trump administration, it aims to help consumers shop for care and compare prices before they go to the hospital. Now, four years after the rule went into effect, hospital billing seems 'intentionally complex,' said Cynthia Fisher, founder of Patient Rights 'Hospitals and insurance companies alike have even hired many middle-player firms to be able to maximize their margins and profits at every single patient encounter,' she added. 'Sometimes what we're finding is the charges like Blake's that are billed are far beyond even the highest rate that they have within their hospital pricing file.' It adds up to an increasingly costly health care experience for Americans. A West Health-Gallup survey published April 2 found that 35% of respondents said they could not access high-quality, affordable health care — a new high since 2021. UCHealth is a nonprofit hospital system with 14 hospitals in Colorado, southern Wyoming and western Nebraska. In its financial filings, UCHealth says its discount program for self-pay patients like Pfeifer 'reduces uninsured patients' liabilities to a level more equivalent of insured patients.' Some of Pfeifer's records conflict with this description. Pfeifer received 10 common blood tests, known as a metabolic panel, and was billed $104 for each. By comparison, UCHealth's public price data shows it charged insured patients between $6.52 and $52.89 for each test in 2022. In another case, Pfeifer was charged $99 for a blood culture to measure bacteria, the records show, while UCHealth's pricing data listed a range of charges for insured patients of between $8 and $61. For a phosphate level blood test, Pfeifer was billed $30, while insured patients at UCHealth were charged between $3.72 and $22.02. Under Colorado law, violations of hospital price transparency requirements are a deceptive trade practice. Dan Weaver, a UCHealth spokesman, said in a statement that the health system 'does everything possible to share prices and estimates with our patients, encourage insurance coverage, assist patients in applying for Medicaid and other programs that may offer coverage.' Regarding Pfeifer's case, Weaver said he could not comment because the hospital had received notice from a lawyer representing Pfeifer that he may file a claim against it. He said the hospital disputes what is in the lawyer's notice, but he declined to specify what exactly it disputes. Weaver pointed to the state of Colorado's 2024 report stating that UCHealth hospitals 'are fully compliant with transparency requirements.' For 2022, when Pfeifer received care at UCHealth, the document showed the hospital providing his care received a 'fair' transparency rating by the state, above 'poor' but below 'good.' Weaver added that CMS, which determines hospital compliance with transparency requirements, 'has not cited UCHealth or our hospitals for noncompliance.' Enforcement actions are exceedingly rare. CMS' website lists monetary penalties against only 27 hospitals in the four years since the requirements began. (There are 6,000 hospitals nationwide, according to the American Hospital Association.) A December 2024 report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found that nearly 40% of the 100 hospitals it studied were not complying with the price transparency requirements. Colorado law allows patients to sue a hospital bringing a debt collection proceeding against them when they believe the facilities have violated price transparency requirements. Steve Woodrow, a Democratic member of the Colorado House of Representatives and a lawyer at the firm Edelson in Denver, represents Pfeifer. 'What happened to Mr. Pfeifer unfortunately repeats itself and plays out across the country thousands of times every year,' Woodrow told NBC News in an interview. 'We now have a situation where people are afraid to get medical care because of the financial ramifications.' Last November, the Justice Department alleged that UCHealth had overbilled Medicare and TRICARE, the health insurer for U.S. service members and their families. Between November 2017 and March 31, 2021, the government alleged, providers at UCHealth hospitals submitted inflated Medicare and TRICARE claims for 'frequent monitoring of vital signs' among patients in the emergency department. UCHealth agreed to pay $23 million to settle the allegations without an admission of liability. Weaver, the UCHealth spokesperson, said the hospital system settled to prevent a lengthy and costly legal dispute. 'UCHealth firmly denies these allegations,' he added, 'and maintains that its billing practices align with the guidelines set forth by the American College of Emergency Physicians.' While UCHealth is a nonprofit, it has generated rising revenues and earnings recently. Net patient revenues at UCHealth, its securities filings show, totaled $8 billion in fiscal 2024, 17% higher than the previous year. Operating income was $523 million, an increase of 58% over 2023. UCHealth's charges for care are higher than most other nonprofits', Medicare data shows. In fiscal 2022, the most recent figures available, UCHealth charged patients 6.6 times the hospital system's costs for care. That is far higher than the 4 times, on average, that U.S. nonprofit health systems charged for care that year, according to Ge Bai, a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Weaver, of UCHealth, said the hospital system's charges are competitive with others. 'Last year alone, UCHealth provided $1.3 billion in total community benefits including about $570 million in uncompensated care,' his statement said. It's problem enough for patients who are overcharged or billed incorrectly for health care. But when hospitals sue to receive payment for those bills, such lawsuits often result in default judgments, legal experts say, issued to patients who don't appear in court or respond. Default judgments can have dire consequences, including wage garnishments. UCHealth has sued thousands of patients using third parties or debt collection middlemen in recent years, a practice that is examined in new research by academics at the George Washington University Law School, Stanford University's Center for Clinical Research and Fisher's group. The study, 'Hospitals Suing Patients: The Rise of Stealth Intermediaries,' found UCHealth and one debt collection firm brought 12,722 lawsuits against patients from 2019 to 2023. Legal records analyzed by the authors suggested 'many of the collection efforts were based on unsubstantiated and inaccurate billing records.' The use of legal middlemen is a national trend and allows hospitals to hide their involvement, avoiding the bad publicity these lawsuits can bring, the research contends. Last year, Colorado lawmakers enacted legislation barring hospitals from suing patients under debt collectors' names, after an investigation into the practice by 9News, an NBC affiliate, and The Colorado Sun. Barak Richman is the Alexander Hamilton professor of business law at George Washington Law School and a co-author of the study. 'What this research shows is people are being pulled into court where a power imbalance takes advantage of them,' he said. 'There needs to be a lot of deliberative thought into what to do about courts as it relates to medical debt.' In a statement about the study, UCHealth's Weaver said those suits make up a 'tiny fraction of our patient care — in fact, more than 99.93% of all patient accounts are resolved without a lawsuit.' He added: 'This study, based on older data, does not reflect the changes put in place in recent years to minimize billing errors, ensure patients are aware of our financial assistance options, and are well informed of their medical bills.' Damon Carson, a small-business owner in Longmont, Colorado, was sued by a collection company after he received an outpatient endoscopy at a UCHealth hospital in his town. The suit came while he was disputing the hospital's charges as excessive. A self-pay patient along with his wife, Traci, Carson tried to be a savvy shopper before he went in for the procedure in 2021. He asked for price estimates from several providers, and the nearby UCHealth facility provided one totaling $1,448, according to a court document. Carson paid upfront. 'I had the procedure and everything was fine,' Carson told NBC News. 'Then the bills started rolling in.' Additional charges of $4,742 drove the total cost for the procedure to around $6,200, a court document shows. Carson said that when he questioned the bills, noting the far lower original estimate, the hospital told him the add-on costs reflected the removal of growths found inside him during surgery. A UCHealth spokesman said the original estimate for Carson's care was accurate and that he was told there might be additional charges and signed an acknowledgement of that, which the hospital provided to NBC News. (Carson says he recalls no discussion of the potential for additional charges.) When Carson refused to pay, he was sued by Collection Center Inc., a debt collection firm that has often filed lawsuits against patients on behalf of the hospital, the academic study shows. In 2023, Carson and the collection firm conducted a mediation, according to court documents. Carson wound up paying only one-third of the additional charges to settle the case. 'I was surprised they caved that fast,' Carson told NBC News. 'Traci and I could easily have paid the $4,000 and our lives gone on. But this was a principle thing.' Fisher, the patient advocate, said the outcome of Carson's case is revealing. 'No one should ever pay that first bill,' she said. 'The onus of proof needs to be on the hospital and the insurance company to prove that they have not overcharged us.' This article was originally published on
NBC News
3 days ago
- Health
- NBC News
Facing sky-high medical bills? Your hospital may have overcharged you
After Blake Pfeifer, a veteran plumber in Colorado Springs, Colorado, underwent emergency stomach surgery at a nearby nonprofit hospital in 2022, he struggled to understand the bills flooding in for his weeklong stay. The initial charge for the procedure at the University of Colorado Health Memorial Hospital Central was $104,000, his records show. Because Pfeifer had no insurance and would be paying out of pocket, he was quoted a discounted price of $58,124. He said he called the hospital to get clarity on the bills but got nowhere. He began paying some of them and was pursued by a collection agency on others. Then he sought the help of a patient advocacy group. 'I've always paid my bills,' Pfeifer, 63, said. 'I wanted a little better explanation.' The group he worked with, Patient Rights found that some of his charges were far higher than the amounts UCHealth reported under a federal price transparency rule that went into effect in 2021. And that wasn't the only notable finding: Only 25% of Pfeifer's charges showed up on the hospital's required price list and therefore could not be compared at all. Pfeifer's experience is not uncommon, according to patient advocates, public interest lawyers and Medicare data. The burden of medical debt, a problem faced by 100 million Americans, has pushed many to delay medical care and even file for bankruptcy, research shows. Making these obligations even more ruinous, patient advocates say, is that many may be based on inaccurate health care bills. These discrepancies occur even as hospitals must list prices for care on their websites. The price transparency rule, initiated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, requires facilities to 'establish, update, and make public a list of all standard charges for all items and services.' Implemented under the first Trump administration, it aims to help consumers shop for care and compare prices before they go to the hospital. Now, four years after the rule went into effect, hospital billing seems 'intentionally complex,' said Cynthia Fisher, founder of Patient Rights 'Hospitals and insurance companies alike have even hired many middle-player firms to be able to maximize their margins and profits at every single patient encounter,' she added. 'Sometimes what we're finding is the charges like Blake's that are billed are far beyond even the highest rate that they have within their hospital pricing file.' It adds up to an increasingly costly health care experience for Americans. A West Health-Gallup survey published April 2 found that 35% of respondents said they could not access high-quality, affordable health care — a new high since 2021. $99 for an $8 blood test UCHealth is a nonprofit hospital system with 14 hospitals in Colorado, southern Wyoming and western Nebraska. In its financial filings, UCHealth says its discount program for self-pay patients like Pfeifer 'reduces uninsured patients' liabilities to a level more equivalent of insured patients.' Some of Pfeifer's records conflict with this description. Pfeifer received 10 common blood tests, known as a metabolic panel, and was billed $104 for each. By comparison, UCHealth's public price data shows it charged insured patients between $6.52 and $52.89 for each test in 2022. In another case, Pfeifer was charged $99 for a blood culture to measure bacteria, the records show, while UCHealth's pricing data listed a range of charges for insured patients of between $8 and $61. For a phosphate level blood test, Pfeifer was billed $30, while insured patients at UCHealth were charged between $3.72 and $22.02. Under Colorado law, violations of hospital price transparency requirements are a deceptive trade practice. Dan Weaver, a UCHealth spokesman, said in a statement that the health system 'does everything possible to share prices and estimates with our patients, encourage insurance coverage, assist patients in applying for Medicaid and other programs that may offer coverage.' Regarding Pfeifer's case, Weaver said he could not comment because the hospital had received notice from a lawyer representing Pfeifer that he may file a claim against it. He said the hospital disputes what is in the lawyer's notice, but he declined to specify what exactly it disputes. Weaver pointed to the state of Colorado 's 2024 report stating that UCHealth hospitals 'are fully compliant with transparency requirements.' For 2022, when Pfeifer received care at UCHealth, the document showed the hospital providing his care received a 'fair' transparency rating by the state, above 'poor' but below 'good.' Weaver added that CMS, which determines hospital compliance with transparency requirements, 'has not cited UCHealth or our hospitals for noncompliance.' Enforcement actions are exceedingly rare. CMS' website lists monetary penalties against only 27 hospitals in the four years since the requirements began. (There are 6,000 hospitals nationwide, according to the American Hospital Association.) A December 2024 report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found that nearly 40% of the 100 hospitals it studied were not complying with the price transparency requirements. Colorado law allows patients to sue a hospital bringing a debt collection proceeding against them when they believe the facilities have violated price transparency requirements. Steve Woodrow, a Democratic member of the Colorado House of Representatives and a lawyer at the firm Edelson in Denver, represents Pfeifer. 'What happened to Mr. Pfeifer unfortunately repeats itself and plays out across the country thousands of times every year,' Woodrow told NBC News in an interview. 'We now have a situation where people are afraid to get medical care because of the financial ramifications.' 'A power imbalance' Last November, the Justice Department alleged that UCHealth had overbilled Medicare and TRICARE, the health insurer for U.S. service members and their families. Between November 2017 and March 31, 2021, the government alleged, providers at UCHealth hospitals submitted inflated Medicare and TRICARE claims for 'frequent monitoring of vital signs' among patients in the emergency department. UCHealth agreed to pay $23 million to settle the allegations without an admission of liability. Weaver, the UCHealth spokesperson, said the hospital system settled to prevent a lengthy and costly legal dispute. 'UCHealth firmly denies these allegations,' he added, 'and maintains that its billing practices align with the guidelines set forth by the American College of Emergency Physicians.' While UCHealth is a nonprofit, it has generated rising revenues and earnings recently. Net patient revenues at UCHealth, its securities filings show, totaled $8 billion in fiscal 2024, 17% higher than the previous year. Operating income was $523 million, an increase of 58% over 2023. UCHealth's charges for care are higher than most other nonprofits', Medicare data shows. In fiscal 2022, the most recent figures available, UCHealth charged patients 6.6 times the hospital system's costs for care. That is far higher than the 4 times, on average, that U.S. nonprofit health systems charged for care that year, according to Ge Bai, a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Weaver, of UCHealth, said the hospital system's charges are competitive with others. 'Last year alone, UCHealth provided $1.3 billion in total community benefits including about $570 million in uncompensated care,' his statement said. It's problem enough for patients who are overcharged or billed incorrectly for health care. But when hospitals sue to receive payment for those bills, such lawsuits often result in default judgments, legal experts say, issued to patients who don't appear in court or respond. Default judgments can have dire consequences, including wage garnishments. UCHealth has sued thousands of patients using third parties or debt collection middlemen in recent years, a practice that is examined in new research by academics at the George Washington University Law School, Stanford University's Center for Clinical Research and Fisher's group. The study, ' Hospitals Suing Patients: The Rise of Stealth Intermediaries,' found UCHealth and one debt collection firm brought 12,722 lawsuits against patients from 2019 to 2023. Legal records analyzed by the authors suggested 'many of the collection efforts were based on unsubstantiated and inaccurate billing records.' The use of legal middlemen is a national trend and allows hospitals to hide their involvement, avoiding the bad publicity these lawsuits can bring, the research contends. Last year, Colorado lawmakers enacted legislation barring hospitals from suing patients under debt collectors' names, after an investigation into the practice by 9News, an NBC affiliate, and The Colorado Sun. Barak Richman is the Alexander Hamilton professor of business law at George Washington Law School and a co-author of the study. 'What this research shows is people are being pulled into court where a power imbalance takes advantage of them,' he said. 'There needs to be a lot of deliberative thought into what to do about courts as it relates to medical debt.' In a statement about the study, UCHealth's Weaver said those suits make up a 'tiny fraction of our patient care — in fact, more than 99.93% of all patient accounts are resolved without a lawsuit.' He added: 'This study, based on older data, does not reflect the changes put in place in recent years to minimize billing errors, ensure patients are aware of our financial assistance options, and are well informed of their medical bills.' 'A principle thing' Damon Carson, a small-business owner in Longmont, Colorado, was sued by a collection company after he received an outpatient endoscopy at a UCHealth hospital in his town. The suit came while he was disputing the hospital's charges as excessive. A self-pay patient along with his wife, Traci, Carson tried to be a savvy shopper before he went in for the procedure in 2021. He asked for price estimates from several providers, and the nearby UCHealth facility provided one totaling $1,448, according to a court document. Carson paid upfront. 'I had the procedure and everything was fine,' Carson told NBC News. 'Then the bills started rolling in.' Additional charges of $4,742 drove the total cost for the procedure to around $6,200, a court document shows. Carson said that when he questioned the bills, noting the far lower original estimate, the hospital told him the add-on costs reflected the removal of growths found inside him during surgery. A UCHealth spokesman said the original estimate for Carson's care was accurate and that he was told there might be additional charges and signed an acknowledgement of that, which the hospital provided to NBC News. (Carson says he recalls no discussion of the potential for additional charges.) When Carson refused to pay, he was sued by Collection Center Inc., a debt collection firm that has often filed lawsuits against patients on behalf of the hospital, the academic study shows. In 2023, Carson and the collection firm conducted a mediation, according to court documents. Carson wound up paying only one-third of the additional charges to settle the case. 'I was surprised they caved that fast,' Carson told NBC News. 'Traci and I could easily have paid the $4,000 and our lives gone on. But this was a principle thing.' Fisher, the patient advocate, said the outcome of Carson's case is revealing. 'No one should ever pay that first bill,' she said. 'The onus of proof needs to be on the hospital and the insurance company to prove that they have not overcharged us.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
PatientRightsAdvocate.org Calls on Nevada Gov. Lombardo to Support Hospital Price Transparency Bill
A.B. 343 would turn Trump executive order into state law CARSON CITY, Nev., May 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- (PRA) is urging Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo to sign A.B. 343, major legislation to deliver hospital price transparency to Nevadans that was passed out of the Nevada Legislature earlier this week. If enacted, the bill would require Nevada hospitals to post all actual prices of available services online, so patients can see upfront prices before care, as well as provide tools for patients to seek recourse when they have been overcharged. It would codify the federal Hospital Price Transparency Rule first enacted in January 2021 under President Donald J. Trump and since expanded in February 2025. "A new era for Nevada patients is on the horizon, and now it's up to Governor Lombardo to make healthcare history for his state," said PRA Founder and Chairman Cynthia Fisher. "This monumental legislation will protect Nevadans from hospital overcharges, surprise bills, and hidden fees with guaranteed access to upfront, actual prices in exact dollars and cents. Complete price transparency will be transformative to lower the costs of care and coverage for families, employers, unions, and Nevada's entire healthcare market." According to a new poll conducted by Echelon Insights, 96% of Americans agree that healthcare consumers should know the upfront price of their care. Meanwhile, according to PRA's Seventh Semi-Annual Hospital Price Transparency Report, only 35% of Nevada hospitals reviewed are fully complying with the federal price transparency rule. Of the 2,000 hospitals reviewed nationwide, just 21% were found to be in full compliance. "We applaud Nevada lawmakers, especially the bill's sponsor, Assembly Speaker Yeager, for responding to not only the urgency but also the popularity of this commonsense issue," added Fisher. "The fight for real prices is a nationwide movement that is growing each day, from the nation's capital to state capitals. Governor Lombardo can help Nevada join states like Ohio and Oklahoma that each enacted similar bills this year codifying President Trump's price transparency rule to put patients first. We strongly encourage Governor Lombardo to seize the opportunity at hand and sign A.B. 343." About PRA (PRA) is a leading national healthcare price transparency organization dedicated to ushering in systemwide transparency through advocacy, testimony, media, legal research, and grassroots campaigns. PRA believes that the availability and visibility of actual, upfront healthcare prices will greatly lower costs for patients and employers through a functional, competitive healthcare marketplace. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Patient Rights Advocate Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
