President Donald Trump on Monday issued an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to require hospitals and insurers to disclose negotiated rates for services, as well as provide patients with out-of-pocket costs before their procedures.
HHS says the goal is to put American patients in control of their care.
“We are fundamentally changing the nature of the health care marketplace,” Trump said at a conference before signing the order.
“Currently patients do not have adequate tools to find the doctors who will deliver better health outcomes at an affordable cost. When they used to talk about Obamacare- ‘you can keep your doctor’ that turned out to be a lie,” Trump said.
“Here you can keep your doctor, but you can also maybe find somebody other than your doctor at your choice. And that would be based on talent. It would also be based on price. Because of this, you'll be able to search out for the right doctor. And it really is in its truest sense, the opposite of Obamacare. You get much better pricing and you'll get the doctor that you want and maybe you'll get better than the doctor that you originally thought about. It’s pretty incredible.”
The White House claims that under the order:
- The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will require hospitals to publicly disclose amounts that reflect what people actually pay for services in an easy-to-read format.
- HHS will begin the process of making information on out-of-pocket spending more readily available to patients before they receive care.
- Researchers, innovators, and providers will get more access to data that will help them develop tools to provide patients with more information about healthcare prices and quality.
- The Administration will improve quality measurements and make them public.
- The order also improves consumers’ incentives to shop for care by expanding the benefit of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and other tax-preferred health accounts.