In response to a White House Executive Order, on November 15th the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Treasury and Labor issued a final regulation requiring hospitals to disclose their negotiated prices for up to 300 “shoppable” medical items and services.
More importantly for MedBen clients, the Departments also issued a proposed regulation that would require self-funded plans (and fully-insured group and individual plans) to disclose information about out-of-pocket costs for certain medical services, negotiated in-network rates, and “historical” payments to out-of-network providers… all of which would need to be accessible to members through a self-service online or mobile application.
As always, MedBen will provide you with more information as it becomes available. But, remember that MedBen already provides cost-sharing information for plan members on our MedBen Access online portal and new mobile app.
If you have any questions regarding the proposed regulation, you are welcome to contact Senior Vice President Caroline Fraker at 800-851-0907 or cfraker@medben.com.