Bill to force Ohio hospitals to detail cost of services gets major changes in Senate

Ohioans may have to wait longer to know exactly what hospital services will cost them.

A bill to make hospitals publish the actual prices of their services passed the Ohio House in June with strong bipartisan support. But a Senate committee introduced significant changes, which advocates say have "gutted" the legislation.

Rep. Ron Ferguson, R- Wintersville, and Rep. Tim Barhost, R-Fort Loramie, sponsored the bill which would require hospitals to publish a list of standard charges for their services. The bill passed by the House would have allowed patients to submit a complaint to the Ohio Department of Health if hospitals did not publish their prices. It also would prohibit a hospital from sending a patient's bill to a debt collector if the department found the hospital had not publicly disclosed its prices.

Cynthia Fisher, the founder of Patient Rights Advocate, called the original bill “common sense” and compared health care transparency currently to going to the grocery store only knowing estimates of the prices and waiting months to get the bill.

Fisher said if patients know the actual price of an MRI or colonoscopy, they know where they can get the best quality care at the best price. She added that if prices are published, people can make sure their bills are correct and hospitals are not overcharging them.

What changes did the Ohio Senate committee make?

The Senate Small Business and Economic Opportunity Committee introduced changes to the bill on April 9. The new version would allow hospitals to publish estimates rather than actual prices and remove the language about patients submitting complaints and prohibiting hospitals in violation of the law from collecting debts.

Ferguson said estimates will not work and patients need actual prices.

"In every other business in America, you know the price. You know the price your house is when you buy it. You know the price of your phone or your computer or any other thing that you own. You should know the price of a hospital service," Ferguson said.

The USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau reached out via phone and email to Sen. George Lang, R-West Chester Twp., who chairs the committee, but did not receive a response.

The bill introduced by the committee also reduced the penalties for hospitals that don't comply and added language prohibiting hospitals from processing the personal data of patients who use their estimator tools.

Fisher said her organization hasn't come across this before in other states where they've worked to pass price transparency bills.

The Ohio Hospital Association said in a statement that the Senate committee version of the bill is more aligned with the federal rule for price transparency and that the association will continue to work in the Senate on the legislation.

“Hospitals support price transparency efforts to provide consumers with meaningful information to make health care decisions," the association said.

Do Ohio hospitals disclose their prices?

A federal rule that required hospitals to publicly disclose their prices took effect in January 2021.

Patient Rights Advocate reviews 2,000 hospitals across the country and found roughly one-third of hospitals comply with the federal rule as of February. Fisher said some states have higher rates of compliance than others and that usually, those states have laws to enforce compliance.

The organization reviewed 79 hospitals in Ohio and found 9% are complying with the federal rule.

What happens now?

Ferguson said the bill has been "destroyed" and he wouldn't vote for it in its current form.

"The bill that we sent out of the Ohio House with bipartisan support is one that prioritizes patients," he said. "The current sub bill, quite frankly, looks like it was written by hospitals so we need to get back to prioritizing patients."

Ferguson said he is continuing to try to recover the enforcement mechanisms in the original bill.

It's not clear when the next hearing on the bill will be.

Erin Glynn is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Senate changes to hospital price bill shock sponsor, advocates