Hospitals

The Senate Finance Committee’s reconciliation language would reduce existing state-directed payments to hospitals and nursing facilities over time until they are at or slightly above Medicare rates.  This analysis identifies states that might have to reduce payment rates for hospitals or nursing facilities if the language is passed into law.

This analysis estimates that the House-passed reconciliation bill could lead Medicaid spending in rural areas to decrease by $119 billion and a 1.5 million drop in enrollment over 10 years.

This analysis examines list prices for COVID-19 testing at the largest hospitals in every state and finds they range widely from $20 to $850. Federal law now requires private insurers to cover COVID-19 tests at no cost to the patient and provides funding for people without health insurance.

This summarizes key provisions of the No Surprises Act, enacted in December 2020 to address the problem of unexpected medical bills, and issues that could arise during implementation ahead of its Jan. 1, 2022 effective date.

The “No Surprises Act,” which establishes new federal protections against most surprise out-of-network medical bills when a patient receives out-of-network services during an emergency visit or from a provider at an in-network hospital without advance notice, will take effect next month. A new KFF brief outlines what to expect in 2022.

A new federal law provides new consumer protections against “surprise” medical bills beginning this year. Test your knowledge about its provisions with this 12-question quiz.

This analysis examines transparency data currently shared by hospitals to comply with federal law and finds that they are messy, inconsistent and confusing, making it challenging if not impossible for patients or researchers to use them to compare prices. Many of these shortcomings stem from a lack of specificity in the requirements for what hospitals must report.

Since 2021, federal law has required hospitals to publicly post information about their standard prices and negotiated discount rates for common health services to encourage consumers to compare prices and to promote competition. To date, however, the transparency data currently shared by hospitals to comply with the law are messy,…

This brief explains the role of federal and state antitrust agencies in challenging anticompetitive practices among hospitals and other health care providers, including the legal authority of federal and state agencies, the role that they play in enforcing antitrust laws, and proposed options for strengthening their authority.

This brief explains the role and implications of cross-market mergers between hospitals and health systems that operate in different regions and describes the approaches that government antitrust agencies have taken in reviewing these types of transactions.