New Report Says More Than A Dozen NC Hospitals Not Complying With Pay Transparency Law

CHARLOTTE, NC. — One year after a law requiring hospitals to post their real prices online went into effect, a report by PatientRightsAdvocate.org says a large majority of hospitals continue to hide the cost of care from consumers.

Only 14.3% of hospitals around the country were complying with the transparency rule, and only 37.9% of the hospitals posted a sufficient amount of negotiated rates, but over half were not compliant in other criteria of the rule, such as listing rates by each insurer and named plan says founder and CEO of PRA Cynthia Fisher.

“So once we have priced transparency it serves as the foundation to create competitive marketplace that’ll be functional and allow all of us to be able to shop for the best quality of care at the at the best possible price,” Fisher says.

Of their list of those not complying, 17 hospitals are in North Carolina, and three of them are in our viewing area.
Including:
-Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center
-Davis regional medical center
-Lake norman regional medical center

WCCB reached out to all the hospital systems to see why they weren’t complying.

Novant says in part:
“…our teams were able to simultaneously develop two tools to ensure greater price transparency.
Both the online price estimator tool and our negotiated rates with insurers are available on our website and have been since Jan. 1, 2021...our teams will continue to refine our price transparency tools to not only ensure compliance, but to provide a real solution for consumers.”

A spokesperson for Davis Regional Medical Center and Lake Norman Regional Medical Center tells WCCB via email that hospitals have worked diligently to ensure information posted on their websites conform with federal requirements and cms has not indicated the information is non-compliant.

“The hospitals that are not complying, while they may have files posted on their website, why they’re not complying is because they are not completing the data fields to show all of their negotiator rates and prices clearly presented by every payer and every plan.”

State Treasurer Folwell put out a statement Thursday condemning the continued violation of hospital price transparency laws by North Carolina hospitals. It can be found here.