Federal Healthcare

Congress questions its role in healthcare price transparency

Modern Healthcare: The Senate's health committee on Tuesday questioned how the government should be involved in healthcare price transparency and whether Congress can change the incentives to encourage more patient shopping.

It isn't clear what Congress could do legislatively to improve transparency. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, asked witnesses during Tuesday's hearing what federal mandates on the issue could look like for Medicaid and Medicare. They largely agreed that everyone in the system, from hospitals to physicians to the patients, need to know the actual price and need better access to quality data. But spelling that out through federal mandates could prove elusive.

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