Less than half of hospital websites are sharing price information for joint replacements despite requirements that went into effect in 2021, according to a study published in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research.
Researchers sampled 400 hospitals between Dec. 1 and 20, 2021, according to a June 24 news release. Of those, 32 percent provided five types of online price information for joint replacements: the total charge, the charges the hospital privately negotiated with insurers, the minimum and maximum negotiated charges and the amount the hospital is willing to accept in cash. When split into individual cases, 21 percent shared all five types of information for knee replacement and 18 percent of hospitals did so for hip replacement.
On Jan. 1, 2021, the federal government began requiring U.S. hospitals to provide clear, accessible price lists for 300 common services.
Another study found that as of September/October 2021, half of hospitals that offered lumbar spine MRIs were compliant with the price transparency mandate.