Final rule ups financial penalties to hospitals that ignore price transparency regulation
Providers speak out against 340B drug pricing cuts of nearly 30%.
November 3, 2021 / Susan Morse, Managing Editor
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is making modifications to the hospital price transparency regulation designed to increase compliance, after initial analysis strongly suggests there is suboptimal compliance beginning January 1, 2022. CMS released the Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment System Final Rule on Tuesday.
CMS is increasing the civil monetary penalties to a minimum of $300/day that will apply to smaller hospitals with a bed count of 30 or fewer, and a penalty of $10/bed/day for hospitals with a bed count greater than 30, not to exceed a maximum daily dollar amount of $5,500.
Under this approach, for a full calendar year of noncompliance, the minimum total penalty amount would be $109,500 per hospital, and the maximum total penalty amount would be $2,007,500 per hospital.
WHY THIS MATTERS
This approach to scaling the CMP amount retains the current penalty amount for small hospitals, increases the penalty amount for larger hospitals and affirms the Administration’s commitment to enforcement and public access to pricing information, CMS said.
