Texas 2036’s new online dashboard — which shows health care pricing data in an easy-to-visualize format — vividly demonstrates price discrepancies that help drive higher and higher government spending, insurance costs, out-of-pocket spending, and health-related inflation – but also how few hospitals are providing pricing data in compliance with transparency laws.
Texas 2036 began researching this data as part of an effort to evaluate the true prices of various health care services around the state. However, inconsistent compliance with state and federal hospital price transparency laws limited what pricing data was available. So, as a first step, the organization focused on data provided by hospitals and their compliance with these laws.
“The data available as of this spring suggests that only about 31 percent of Texas hospitals are mostly compliant with state and federal law,” says Charles Miller, senior policy advisor for health care at Texas 2036. “But even when data might be available, a lack of standards makes it really difficult to utilize. There’s a lot of room for improvement.”